


when the far-gone dead return

by writingforhugs



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: And how they recovered, Dark!Peeta, F/M, I just really wanted to learn more about the people of panem, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-War, Recovered Memories, Recovery, Spoilers ahead:, Torture, War, but he escapes and gets revenge while regaining his memories, peeta isn't rescued, this is unashamedly inspired by bucky barnes in cap: civil war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-14 03:20:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 30
Words: 103,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingforhugs/pseuds/writingforhugs
Summary: After the ceasefire is called, Katniss works with Squad 451 to locate and destroy Capitol loyalists, and free the new Panem from Snow once and for all.Somewhere else, amid the rubble, a man wakes up.





	1. Peeta

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Wilfred Owen's 'The Unreturning'.
> 
> This fic is set 3 years after the Quell. The war has ended and Panem is trying to rebuild. I have basically been reading way too much Stucky fic recently and realised that two of my faves are both amputee-brainwashed-heart-of-gold gentlemen just trying to find themselves in a world that's against them and got a bit emo. So.
> 
> Warnings for torture, ptsd, murder, and all the messiness of a post-war country. Each chapter alternates between Katniss and Peeta's POVs. This is totally unbetaed so just roll with it.
> 
> And if you lucky thing you caught this when I published the first chapter you got to see me hurriedly uploading each chapter LIVE! what a treat.

_Go,_ says the voice, harsh, hoarse, crackling and rasping above the flames, the hiss of the chambers cooling. _Go, get out of here!_

He stumbles, blinded by the lights overhead. Hands haul him upright, grabbing him and shoving him along even as he stumbles. Palms cradle his jaw, a faint, quick touch, a finger peeling back his eyelids.

 _What am I supposed to do_? he asks, sliding against the wall, knocking something from a table nearby, sending it clattering to the ground.

 _Go!_ says the voice. _Find them._

He runs, somehow. His body fights it because it hurts, Damnit. The cold is still there, and then the heat, the ceiling crumbling, sirens whining. He runs and runs until it gets lighter, and finally he can see the city through the haze of the smoke and the world is burning. Gunfire screams, fire blooms into the air, and he runs.

* * *

The wind is a switch. Some things are and some things aren’t and he usually doesn’t know until the switch has been flipped, activating a blinking light deep in the recesses of his mind. It never illuminates the space enough for him to fully understand _what_ it is he’s remembering or _why,_ only that he’s remembering _something_.

The wind whistles. Moans. Whispers in through where the glass is cracked or missing, carrying in cold out from the darkness that coats the outskirts of the city.

It must have been nice here, once. A home. There’s peeling wallpaper and chandeliers all dusty and chairs and nice things. Someone lived here but that was long ago. The streets were already overgrown when he woke up, tarmac prickly with weeds and grass. It was clear to him that these places were abandoned already and not this way because of the war. He doesn’t always trust his head but he knows there was a war, with weapons and fire and blood and people who toed the line of right and wrong, and that sometimes what was wrong wasn’t so certain but what was right was always clear. Someone must have won, though, because he doesn’t hear the groans of bombs or the rattling screams of gunfire anymore. Just the heavy quietness of a city brought to its knees.

The destruction spread from the centre like a sore, towards the dam in the south. He has seen people there, clambering over rubble, working machines, clear and building, but not here. There is no one here. Maybe he should find some people and ask who won, and what they did to do so.

When he woke up in the street, he was confused. He can’t remember how long ago that was.

He sees the sun and the moon. He listens to the birds. That is nice. The outskirts are nice, considering the way they are crumbling. There is no electricity, no food but for old cans, but there is water and no one has bothered him yet.

He dragged a mattress into the centre of the kitchen. He spends much of his time curled onto his side there to think and to sleep. Both activities bring him some answers, some flashes. He knows what they did to him but can’t remember exactly why they did it or what he did to make them choose him.

People don’t think like that. It isn’t normal to not remember your name.

There is a tattoo on his wrist, the ink smudging into his skin. It might be a name and he wishes it were clearer. Maybe PM12 or PM18 or DM12 or DM18. What it means, he isn’t sure. But it might be a name, might be a location. Maybe someone else knows what it means.

He woke in the street cold and alone. There was no more gunfire but the sound of it rang in his ears. There was just ash drifting down slowly and smoke pushing against his skin like an excluded ghost.

 _They left you. They left you after everything you did and they did and they left you._ That voice was also the one who told him to run, to hide, to _run run run get out of here go and hide this is not safe this is not your home_. He’d listened to it. He’d found this building. He’d stayed and no one had come to get him and that had been nice. He’d asked it what _home_ was. But it didn’t answer, and the question rattled in the abyss, loud against the silence.

* * *

 He can do many things. He is not stupid. He can dress himself and tie his own laces and cook cans of beans and furry peaches over the little flame, and stitch his flesh shut without wincing, which is a different kind of thing to the others. He knows he’s forgotten many things but not how to be alive. He took a lot out and he can feel the gaps where they took and took and didn’t put back the right things. They put back things that do not fit and he almost wishes they had left him empty because these things that do not fit sound like whimpers and smell like blood. They remind him of the sound people make when they can’t breathe. Of the sound of saws and the whir of machines. They remind him of a hand on his neck and a voice in his ear: _you’re a good boy, aren’t you_?

* * *

His dreams have a tell. Sometimes he thinks he’s awake but the world will be tinged a greyish blue and everything moves very slowly. His body is frozen and his mind races on and on, straining at the bit, but it’s trapped, a rapid dog in a cage. The dog gnaws at the bars until its gums bleed but it is still stuck.

Dreams can be memories, too. He latches onto those even though it doesn’t give him any more answers but it’s nice to have something to store away that isn’t blue and grey.

Maybe it’s okay that he can’t remember things anymore. He must have had something to remember at some point but not now, and maybe that’s okay. But he can’t convince himself. It just isn’t the same.

* * *

_“What is your name?”_

_“I- I – I don’t know.”_

_“You do. You do know. Even mutts have names.”_

* * *

 

He has two legs. One is real, blood and flesh. The other is metal sunk into the middle of his thigh. It whirs and clicks sometimes. He forgets that it’s there but then sometimes he remembers. It wasn’t always there. Something had to have happened for it to be there. He remembers having another metal one before this one so they took it away at one point and then gave him another.

It’s part of him now. It won’t detach no matter how much he pulls. They connected it to his spine, blurred the line between human and machine, and he can wiggle his toes and feel pressure when he presses his fingers against it, but he can’t feel pain or the brush of a blanket against the shin. He tried to remove it several times before, scratching and digging at the skin, pulling and tugging and ripping until blood oozes and pain sparked through him and the guards came in to make him stop.

* * *

 

The shadows in his dreams feel like hands. They slide over his skin, down his throat, thick as tar. He fights like he always does and they step back to watch him in the dark corners of the world, silent and still and looming and _look at him lying there_ and he wants to get free but he’s bound and there’s pressure on his stomach and his chest and they don’t let him go.

* * *

 

One night, he wakes remembering a meadow. A meadow at night. He remembers running, with a girl by his side and dogs at his heels and lenses whirring in the trees.

* * *

 

He is sat by the window watching a small black beetle scuttling over his knuckles when the air changes. He feels it against the back of his neck.

And then there’s a sound. A distant rumble. The sky is grey and empty, clouds thick and draped across the towers in the distance and he cranes his neck to look and suddenly the sound is on top of him and it makes his heart pound and his blood turn cold and the voice – hello voice! – tells him _5, 4, 3, 2, 1_ and he doesn’t know why.

The hovercraft swoops over, huge and triangular, making the building shake. On the underside of each wing is a number thirteen. It slides into the cloudbank. The clouds rumble for a few moments longer and then fall silent.

He feels sick and drops back from the window. He goes to put his head between his knees and when he shifts his foot he sees the beetle crushed against the marble.

* * *

 

His skin crawls. He wants to be clean.

Only one of the three showers in the apartment work, spitting out black water. So he goes to the sink and fills a bucket and stands in the cubicle to wash the best he can. It’s lukewarm but it’s clear. He lifts the bucket and pours it over his head. His hair is lank and stuff and flattens around his ears. He dries himself off and wraps the towel around his waist. He fills the bucket to wash his hair and places it in the cubicle and kneels down on the tiles to plunge his head in.

At first it feels good and he scrubs and scrubs and feels his hair loosening but then there’s a pair of hands on his shoulders pushing him down, keeping him in place and he coughs and water rushes in and he falls backwards, water sluicing over his chest and back and over the floor. He chokes and looks around. He is alone. He can feel the hands but there is no one here.

The water tips back and forth in the bucket. He stands and dries his hair the best he can, yanks on some warmer clothes and goes out of the bathroom, locking the door tight. He paces and tries to breathe but nothing works. The memories hit with the precision and power of an engineered wave.

_“You think you can get away with that shit?” the man says, anger biting into his words. “Do you?!”_

_He calls out and others arrive, all dressed in white medical scrubs, all staring at him on the floor with the black, endless voids of their eyes._

_“Put him in the tank until he remembers what he is.”_

_His cheek thrums in the aftermath of the punch._

_But he knows the tank. He hates the tank. He fights and he bellow like a child having a tantrum, kicking out to try and keep them away as they grab at his wrists and his ankles. One of them calls out for a guard when he lands a solid kick to their chest. A guard appears from the corridor, wielding a baton._

_“Please,” he says, not realising for a few delayed seconds that he’s the one speaking, that that horrible sound is coming from_ his _throat. “Please.”_

_The baton makes contact with his side and he jerks, the current pulsing through him, sharp and bright beneath his skin, forcing his eyes to roll backwards in his head._

_He feels warmth between his thighs._

_“Ah, shit,” says the guard. “Set it too high. Sorry.”_

_“You don’t have to clear it up, do you?” snaps one of the orderlies._

_They drag him upright. His head screams for him to fight but the noise is garbled and he can’t move anyway, no matter how hard he tries. They take him out of the room and into one a few doors down, and there’s the tank, with the faucet beside it slowly dripping. They stuff a gag in his mouth and tie him up and spin the board until he’s upside down, his head in the container, and then they turn on the faucet. Water rushes up, and he shudders when it kisses the top of his head. He thrashes, shouting, against the gag, remnants of the electricity still coursing through him._

_But the water keeps coming, rising up over his scalp and his forehead, to his brows, until he has to scrunch his eyes shut. They shut it off when it’s at the tip of his nose. He has to keep his neck continually stretched forward so that the water doesn’t go into his nostrils. It’s happened before, when they left him there for hours and he just couldn’t do it anymore, and they’d waited for him to start to panic, start to try to break free, or to just lift his head, but he didn’t._

_They cut him down. He spends three days without food._

* * *

 

He doesn’t go back into the bathroom again.

* * *

 

He dreams of a voice. A woman’s voice. He wakes thinking that she’s actually there, beckoning him from somewhere in the building or perhaps in the street but when he opens his eyes he sees the greyish-blue tint and knows not to go after her.

There were others in the cells where he was kept. A girl next to him. He used to speak to her because she needed it. He wonders if she’s okay. If she woke up in the street too.

* * *

 

_Hey, he says, ignoring the pain in his chest. Hey, speak to me._

_She huffs. He hears it. He smiles._

_Hey. You’re alright._

* * *

 

_Hey, he says, ignoring the blood in his mouth. Hey, speak to me._

_There’s just the sound of dripping water._

* * *

 

_Hey, he says. Come on, it’s over._

_There’s a sound._

_Hello? He asks, because he isn’t sure if he imagined it, but then it happens again and he leans happily against the wall._

_I’m so glad you’re there, he says. He talks to her. All kinds of nonsense. But she said long ago that it helped and he wants to help._

* * *

 

_Hey, he says. Are you alright?_

_I’m fine, she replies._

_You were gone a long time._

_I’m fine, she replies._

_He pauses, and then just talks. And talks and talks and talks._

_Who the fuck are you talking to? shouts an angry voice from outside._

_Don’t listen to them, he tells her but she doesn’t reply._

_The angry voice bangs on the door. If you don’t shut up, I’ll make you shut up._

_They don’t know what they’re saying, he says, curling up small in the corner._

_The door opens and the angry person walks all fast and quick and puts their foot in his side even when he tells them to stop. There’s no one next door, they tell him. Your little friend is gone._

* * *

 

He sees a light in the building opposite and goes to find the person who must be there. He wonders how they’d kept so quiet all this time.

The other apartment block is nice but has a lot of water damage. Animals have got in and ivy creeps up the walls. He walks up the stairs and gets to the right floor and breaks into few apartments until he’s in the one opposite his. He can tell because he tied a sheet to his window and it waves at him in the breeze. He looks around but it’s empty, no signs of movement, the dust only disrupted by his own feet. It’s disappointing but he knows he saw the light, saw it flicker like someone walked in front of it. He turns on his heel and then the window blows and a curtain flutters and he sees movement and freezes.

“Hello?” he says, throat scratchy. “Hello?”

He shifts his foot and listens carefully.

“I saw your light,” he tries again, but there’s no reply. He steps forward and there’s a foot but then – but it’s his foot and the realisation hits hard that he saw light reflecting off a mirror and that there’s no one else out here but him.

He looks at himself in the mirror. Hair grazing his chin, dark brown, too dark for his pale skin. He holds himself like he was once bulky, heavy with muscle, but there’s a softness to him that comes from lack of food and lack of physical exercise. His eyes are dark too, pools staring back at him. He lifts his chin, watches _him_ watching him back.

This person doesn’t seem right.

* * *

 

He wakes with a name. _Darius_. He looks to his wrist. DM12. DM18. It doesn’t feel right, just like his hair and his eyes don’t feel right, but he’ll cling to it because he has nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out my pinterest page for the board i created for this fic @saturnblushes


	2. Katniss

_“You’ll never find him, you know,” says Snow. “It’s too late. Too late for you, for your dear sister, for Panem. You destroyed it all. There is nothing but ash.”_

_Blood oozes from his mouth, thick and hot. The greenhouse is humid, the roses growing perfect and uniform, purest white against dark wet leaves. The blood fills, tipping down his chest, to the floor, flowing and flowing and filling the space and pressing against the glass and I try to break free but it fills and fills and Snow is still laughing that awful choked sound and –_

I wake scrabbling at my clothes, expecting the feel blood thick and hot seeping into the fabric, but there’s nothing. I drop back against my bed, breathing hard. I listen to the sounds from outside and calm myself.

I try not to think as I shower and dress for the day. _You’ll never find him._ It’s been a year since the end of the war, close to three since I last saw Peeta on Capitol television. Snow was right about a lot of things, but I refuse to let this be one of them.

I eat breakfast by the window, looking out into the street, watching personnel and civilians walking past. The apartment I’ve been assigned is small but functional, one of a few remaining buildings this side of District 5, most of which are now military bases or medical facilities. I’m here with Squad 451 – we dropped the ‘star’ in our name long ago – working to rid Panem of the lingering threat of Snow and Coin. It’s hard work, exhausting and tedious and often involves a lot of waiting around before we can actually go in and destroy Capitol cells, but it’s what Panem needs. It’s what I need. With Prim gone, my mother gone, and Peeta lost, I have nothing from before the Games. I have Gale, yes, but it’s different. It’s just not the same.

I’ve just finished rinsing out my bowl when there’s a knock at the door. I unlock and crack it open an inch. It’s Gale, dressed for the day in his black military gear.

“Ready?” he asks, and I nod.

“Give me a minute,” I say, closing the door. I locate the rest of my gear, pulling it on. I stand in front of the mirror as I loop my belt. Black boots, black jumpsuit, bulletproof vest underneath. My surname and rank over my left breast pocket, a 13 on the right. I am a soldier, no longer the Mockingjay, no longer Katniss Everdeen, a girl from District 12.

Gale watches me as I lock the door, and then we head down the stairwell. He waves at a man stood on the floor below, the floor he lives on.

“Jackson wants us in Command,” he says as we cross the foyer. I nod. I got the order through on my comm while I was eating.

“You think they’ve finally found something?” I ask as we step into the street and into the bright sunlight. The two women standing guard stand to attention as we pass. I used to hate it, but now I just ignore it. It’s protocol, and I can’t fight everything.

“I hope so,” Gale replies, running his hand through his hair. It’s gotten long recently, and his face is covered in a thick black scruff that makes him look exactly like his father. I cut my own hair about eight months ago, chopping it to my jaw, so it’s not as long as it was but is enough to pull into a ponytail.

We walk up the hill, past the blockades, past where the First School used to be, and step into the inconspicuous alleyway leading to Command. It doesn’t look like anything from the outside, and if it weren’t for the heavily armed guards stood by it, you’d never know a military base was there. Gale pushes open the door, revealing a short stairway. We follow it down, go through a pair of doors, and then down another set of stairs, reaching an endless corridor. We turn right, through three further sets of doors. Even we, the most recognisable faces of the rebellion, must give proof of ID to get in.

I couldn’t believe it was there when I first arrived, just hidden below the streets. Before Panem, it was a nuclear control centre, and during Panem, a bunker forgotten to all those but rebels. And now it’s Command-Five, District 13’s home away from home. It’s busy inside, loud, but fairly still, with most of the people there at screens with headsets, organising and receiving intel from across the country. It’s a huge operation, coordinating the rebuilding of Panem. Every person in here has earned their place.

In the war room, the Leeg sisters, Boggs, and Homes are already waiting. Gale and I salute Jackson and take our seats.

“Good morning,” she says. “I hope you’re well rested. I have a mission for you.”

“You got a hit?” asks Gale, and Jackson nods. I’m mildly unsettled by the satisfaction in feel, but it’s been two months since we found a cell. Those lingering on are getting better and better at hiding, covering their tracks and scattering any evidence. Even with our sprawling network of people tracking them, they’ve managed to evade us. It’s the longest lull we’ve had since the war ended.

I suppose it has been nice, not to be dropped somewhere in the middle of the night to infiltrate and destabilise a cell. But I’ve been getting antsy, waiting. Knowing that with each passing hour, loyalists to Snow and Coin have been working to bring terror to a Panem still struggling to stand on two feet.

“District 10,” Jackson says as a map comes on screen of the coastline.

“We cleared Ten,” says Leeg 1.

“We did. They just came back. This time to the outposts.” On the map, a series of yellow dots glow, along with a single red one. “They’re mostly abandoned, but this one is operational. There’s a compound beneath it that we didn’t know was there. It was untraceable to all forms of detection, hence our surprise when we received a little message from our friends in the cliff.”

A fuzzy audio file plays, the speech garbled and corrupted in places. A series of words and numbers. It’s communication between two cells.

“We’re yet to confirm if they’re coordinates, though I suspect it’s a coded message. We only picked up on it because there was a landslide. Half the cliff dropped into the ocean, exposing them, damaged their cloaking systems. We need to move fast before they realise and make a run for it.” Jackson stops and gazes around the group. “Questions?” No one says a word. “Good. You’ll be leaving in an hour.”

The hovercraft leaves promptly. On board is Gale, myself, the Leegs, Homes, and Boggs as mission Commander. Finnick has opted to sit it out, as has Johanna.

I sit alone, intending to get some sleep, but Gale and Boggs are joking around and Leeg 1 snores so I don’t get much more than forty minutes. As we get closer to the coast, the craft goes covert, and a tense silence falls over the cabin. We’ve done this a hundred times before, but it’s the same way whenever we’re about the start a mission, with each of us doing what we need to do in preparation. I check my pack, double knot my laces, and ensure my weapons are in working order. Around me, the others go through their own rituals.

We’re dropped several miles from the coast, rappelling silently down from the craft onto a wide grassy plain. It’s an hour from nightfall, so we lie low until the sun sinks, and then make the trek through the knee-deep, swaying grass, until we descend the cliff. We locate a tunnel built into the base and creep through. It’s slimy with seaweed and is undoubtedly a death trap when the tide rises. I feel the same tightness in my chest that I felt in the Capitol sewers when we almost lost Finn. I’m glad he’s not here.

“Everdeen, you good?” Boggs asks, and I nod in grim determination, ignoring the steady lapping of water several meters away at the tunnel entrance.

The mission is easy, though I’d almost hoped for a challenge given the months spent waiting for it to arrive. The Leegs blast the doors open but the gunfire we’re expecting isn’t there, just a labyrinth of corridors and rooms. We split and clear the place, and finally find the loyalists working there, in the central control room. They’re still in their pyjamas, having been awoken when the doors were blown open, but they fight back admirably. Two are killed, the others are restrained. We contact Command-Five with the news and reroute the radio system so that any messages sent here are redirected to us.

The tide has risen too high for us to make an easy escape, so we spend the night in the compound. When the sea level dips again, we escape, dragging the prisoners with us, and climb to the top of the cliff to wait.

“I get why Odair loves Four so much,” Boggs says as we sit in the grass, inhaling sea air.

We watch the sun rising over the water until the hovercrafts arrive.


	3. Peeta

He decides to go into city. He needs to go to where there are people. He has run out of food. He is tired of being alone, of having no one to answer his questions.

The city is a bad place, and the buildings warn him to stay away, to get away from the bad places and the bad things it holds, that he ran for a reason and should not return. But the people he can see call him, tell him with a curl of the finger to _step closer and see_.

He disguises himself in the clothing found in the apartment. They’re old and moth-eaten but will be enough. He finds a jacket, and a cap. Dark, plain colours. He finds a backpack and keeps inside it a blanket and a notebook he found in a drawer and has been writing things in to help clear the haze of his mind. He also puts in a canteen of water, and then double knots his laces because it seems right and steps out into the street. He closes the door behind him which seems silly but it seems worse to leave it open. He walks down the avenue and then looks back. The sheet waves at him from the window.

The walk to where the bombs have reached takes seventy one minutes. Longer than he expected but he got lost once or twice and had to hide when he thought he heard the rumble of an approaching truck.

His heart pounds when he realises that he can hear voices. Suddenly, suddenly, there are people very close to him and he isn’t used to it, to the sound and the movement and the way it charges the air. He ducks into a building to hide. He remains through the night.

Darkness falls. It’s louder here. There’s a buzz in the air. He can see lights. There’s rubble and destruction everywhere. They haven’t yet cleared the streets, only worked small routes through, pushing aside slabs of concrete to make enough room.

* * *

 

The next morning, he rummages through the building and pulls a satiny, billowy coat from a closet. It has a hood. He pulls it on. It’s soft and warm against his skin and shades his face, making it easy to hide.

He isn’t scared of people. No. Not _scared_. Perhaps he should be. It is people who did bad things to him, but he is also a person, and the people rebuilding the city are people too so they can’t be all bad. He has done bad things too, to good people. So he should be wary, and they should be wary of him, and perhaps the hood will help with that.

If they knew what he had done, they’d go after him. Here, he is both the wolf and the lamb. The deciding factor will be who decides to bite first.

In the street, he heads towards noise. He finds people clearing a street, demolishing a statue.

“Hey!” a voice shouts. He jolts, head jerking to the side. “Hey! You!” the voice calls again. A man in a bright orange jacket walks towards him. Non-threatening but a stranger nonetheless. “Where’d you come from?” asks the man.

He blinks, frowns, looks back the way he came.

“Those streets aren’t safe. You shouldn’t be wondering around when they haven’t been cleared for holos.”

“Oh,” he says. The man is watching him closely.

“You looking for the camps? Or do you got a place to stay?”

“Camps.”

“Okay, head down this street and turn left, and then keep walking and you’ll see people and know where to go. They’ll set you up with shelter, medical help. Rations. They’ll get you to people you know.”

“Thank you,” he tells the man.

“Don’t come back round these parts. Not until they’re cleared.”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

And then he walks away. He walks and he walks and he finds the camps. They’re huge, housing thousands. What must have once been a public courtyard is now a hospital. There’s a hall serving food. Another building is signposted as a ‘citizen redirection’ and has a long line snaking from it.

He gets food first. He receives a ration pack and finds somewhere quiet to sit on a low brick wall to eat and watch the people around him. It’s clear who is from the city and who is not. The city people are strange colours and shapes and wander around like ghosts. The soldiers are in dark colours, grey and blue and green and black. They hold semi-automatic weapons and are hard at work.

The rations are small and bland. Crackers, preserve, a powdered food he adds water to, a ‘nutritional bar’. He puts the bar in his backpack and eats the other items. His stomach hurts a little after but his head hurts less. He keeps his head low, keeps small. He doesn’t want any attention drawn to himself. There’s been a buzzing in his ears ever since he arrived. An itch in his eyelids.

He joins the line outside the ‘citizen redirection’ building. He has questions, he wants answers. The people here will help. There’s a tall, thin woman in front of him, her skin covered in purple lines, her body clothed in a heavy fur coat. He watches the fur shifting in the wind.

“Your jacket,” says a voice. It’s the woman. He looks up and she purses her lips. She reaches out and he steps back before realising that she only wants to feel the fabric of his hood. “A _Dossenia_ , yes?”

He blinks. He does not understand.

“Yes,” he says. She nods.

“An excellent designer. I haven’t seen his work for some time.”

He nods and she turns away. He stares at the fur again. How can she be talking so freely about this? Does she not see where they are, what they’re doing?

The city is a bad place, filled with bad people who do not understand what they have done.

The line moves slowly but his mind fills quickly with questions. _Who am I? Where should I go? How did I get here?_ He wants answers – needs answers. He’s been figuring stuff out by himself, like that the taste of pears makes him feel sick, and that he has a knack for drawing. But none of that is very useful. It can’t get him anywhere.

His strongest memories are the most recent. He remembers what they did to him, what they made him do, and everything has sprouted from that. The _before_ is what is bothering him.

“Sir?” asks a young woman, and he realises he’s at the front of the line. “Can I help you?”

He takes a few seconds. “I don’t – I don’t know where I’m going,” he says, the words thick in his mouth.

“Do you need directions to a specific location in the Capitol? Or are you requesting a district transferal?”

He isn’t stupid. He hasn’t forgotten it all.

“If you give me a name, I can locate possible family members, sir.”

“No,” he says. “I know that I’m not meant to be _here_.”

“In the Capitol? You’re not a Capitolite?”

“No.”

“Ah,” says the woman, standing. “Please follow me.”

He does so blindly. She walks in the stiff way that all military personnel walk. The guards used to walk like that. But she is not a guard. She is going to help him. The inside of the ‘citizen redirection’ building has been cleared, and filled with cubicles, all of which hold people dressed like her working on computers, talking quietly to the person or people sat opposite them. He listens to their conversations, picking up bits and pieces, about District 6 and District 11 and _records were destroyed_ and _relocation is a priority for children_. The general consensus he arrives at is that they all want to go home. _Me too, pal._

He takes a seat when the soldier tells him to. He’s glad it’s a woman and not a man, especially in this cramped, closed-off space, but he still watches her, careful. There were bad women too.

“My name is Terra, and I’m a support soldier from Thirteen.”

_Thirteen?_

“Yes, District 13,” she confirms. He didn’t mean to speak out loud. Terra furrows her brow. “You know why we’re here, yes?”

“Yes.”

“The rebellion. President Paylor sent us here to support the citizens of the Capitol and those of the districts trapped here after the war ended.”

He nods slowly. “Okay.”

Terra narrows her eyes. He shies away from her gaze, focusing on the cuff of his sleeve.

“You said you weren’t from the Capitol. Can you tell me what your business was in the city?”

He thinks before he answers. His confusion is making her suspicious. “I was brought here.”

“For work?” He nods. That is the easy answer. “Alright. From which district?”

He blurts out a number. “Six.”

Terra types in the information. “And how long was your work permit?”

“I- I can’t, I can’t remember,” he says, scrubbing at his forehead.

“Sir, are you alright? Do you need medical attention?” Terra asks, and he takes a breath. He smiles. It feels like a mask, hot and pressing against his skin, but he has to convince her.

“No, no, I’ve just been here so long I can’t remember anymore.”

“Ah,” she says. “Well, there’s a train leaving for District 6 this evening. Would you like me to allocate you a space?”

“Yes,” he says, still smiling. “Thank you.”

“Upon arrival in Six you’ll receive a relocation package and temporary housing until you can be properly placed, or until you find your own accommodation,” Terra says. “Can I have a name?”

_You’re a mutt. You’re a monster. What is your name?_

“Darius,” he says. “Darius Dossenia.”

It sounds like bullshit in his head but she doesn’t bat an eyelid. “I can’t find you on our records, unfortunately, but that’s not uncommon. Loyalists destroyed a lot of the system and we’re only just managing to restore it.”

Terra takes his photograph and he spies himself on the screen. Lank hair, shadowed eyes, pale skin. He stares and almost misses when Terra pulls a gun from the desk. He recoils, chair skidding back.

“Mr. Dossenia, this is just a temporary ID chip to get your across district borders. I promise it is nothing more than a scratch.”

_“Hold him down, hold him down! Strap him down, now!”_

_“No, please – please please please–” he begs but there’s a sharp blow to his head and his vision blurs and he’s dragged onto the cold metal of the operating table and then there’s a slight scratch and his body goes limp._

Terra is speaking. She has hidden the gun.

“No,” he says, heart racing because that wasn’t allowed. “No,” he says it again. Terra holds out a placating hand but he doesn’t want her anywhere near him. She’s got him cornered and he was an _idiot_ and trusted her and she’s going to knock him out and he’ll wake up in a cell or on the table or in the tank.

“Sir,” Terra says, but he’s gone, bolting away, pushing people aside. People stare and shout and a soldier commands him to stop but he can’t he has to run, he has to go.

He slows down when he’s a block away, slipping into a side street to catch his breath. He braces his hands on his knees and gasps and wheezes and tips to the side. The buzz is back and it’s loud and spiky and crackling in his ears. He grits his teeth, grinding them together, staggers into the nearest building he can find, ducking under the tape marking it as _dangerous_.

When he wakes, night has fallen. It’s still loud out in the street. People mill around, soldiers keep guard. He listens and watches and figures out how to get out of the city. They have his picture now, and a name, and they will look for him for running like he did. He must leave the city.

He waits until the early hours, when it’s quieter, emptier, and tracks the movements of a soldier as they stroll up and down the street, patrolling. They walk past every twenty-two minutes, before regrouping and reporting. He waits in the shadows of the collapsing building and grabs them. They try to shout but he subdues them, dragging their ragdoll body into the dark. It’s automatic, his hands moving without him thinking about it to disable and restrain the man. The buzzing stops, too, his mind curiously blank and calm as he strips the soldier of their uniform and covers them with the coat, pulling the hood over their face.

He dresses, feeling the residual warmth of the man’s body in the fabric. Boots, jacket, pants. The soldier’s gun lies on the floor. He stares, his hands twitch. He takes the helmet instead, pulling it low over his head.

He holds his hand over the soldier’s nose and mouth. A soft puff of air. They are not dead.

He exits the building and heads for the station. He walks with purpose. Not too fast, not too slow. No one bothers him. The station is busy despite the hour and the crackling buzz threatens to return.

“Soldier?!” shouts a voice, and he looks around. A greying man dressed in black eyes him. “What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Sir?”

“Marcin, is it?”

He looks down at his breast pocket. MARCIN. He nods.

“Have you been given orders?”

“Only to report to the station, sir,” he says, the lie easy, the buzzing settling down.

“There’s a supply train headed out. We need as many hands as we can get. Platform two, go!”

“Yes sir,” he says, saluting. The man eyes him, and then strides away.

 _Marcin_ turns on his heel, finds the platform, the train, and hides in the bathroom. He stares at himself in the mirror as the train lurches away. He peers through the slit window as the city recedes.

He wants to go home. He wants to find home. Find people who know who he is. And getting out of the city was step one. The city was a bad place. They did bad things to him.

_“You’ll think he’ll survive it?” asks a guard, the curiosity in his voice sliding back and forth in the air, green and yellow. He squints up, trying to make the guard out, but his chest hurts and his eyes sting and every inhale sounds like a tire on gravel._

_“If he does, he won’t know his left from his right,” says another guard. “The venom’ll turn his brain to mush.”_

He braces his hands on the sink and squeezes his eyes shut. He’s fine. He’s alive. He’s okay. He can hide and keep small and they won’t come get him and he’ll find good people and –

“Quit hoggin’ the bathroom!” comes a voice, and a fist hammering on the bathroom door. “Come on, man!”

He flinches away and the door shakes. He unlocks the door, hands shaking, and doesn’t look the man stood outside in the eye as he squeezes past, who grumbles and mutters under his breath. He walks along a short corridor and ends up in the main space of the carriage. There are soldiers in there, sitting on benches. He is Marcin. He has to pretend.

He sits down and looks around. The floor and walls are bare metal, the carriage gutted completely but for three chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, swaying with the movement of the train. He looks at the soldiers around him. Some are napping, some are just quietly sitting, others are chatting. He hears them discussing the Capitol and Thirteen and cursing over things to do with the war and the ensuing recovery and how _it’s gonna take years, to get Panem back in order, this is going to be it for the rest of our lives. Good thing we’ve got Paylor on our side then, rounding up loyalists left and right. Yeah, with the ‘star squad’—it’s a joke. They’re celebrities, not soldiers. They’re Victors—they know what they’re doing, and they have more reason to fight than any of us. They’re crazy, all of them. They have no place on the frontlines. They should be imprisoned, in a jail cell or in a hospital. I don’t care which. They saved us, and they’ve been punished enough._


	4. Katniss

I’m helping load cargo off a supply train in District 11 when I see him. Blond, stocky, a little taller than me, dressed in the grey fatigues of a first-rank Private.

I stare, watching him striding away.

A box filled with water purifying tablets thuds against my chest, and I almost drop it.

“You got it?” asks the soldier next to me, one hand steadying the box.

“Yeah,” I say, shaking my head. “Sorry.” I pass the box to Gale. I look back at the man. He’s turned now, pointing and talking to another soldier. It isn’t him.

“Catnip?” Gale asks.

“I thought it was him,” I say, clearing my throat. Gale follows my gaze. “It’s not him.”

“You really think he’d be here? And that we wouldn’t know about it?”

“I just think it’s worth keeping my eye out.”

Gale disapproves, but wisely says nothing, something he’s come to learn over the last few years. I know what he’s going to say, though. I know what he believes. And I know I sound crazy when I say we should look out for Peeta but I think what I think and that is that somewhere, he’s alive. He’s out in Panem, lost, but alive.

Why not District 11? Why wouldn’t he be here? Eleven after all suffered tremendously, unable to fully join the rebellion after the Capitol-loyal peacekeepers held them all hostage within their own homes, creating a miniature Panem inside the huge walls cloaking the district. When they finally got free, it was just the beginning of what will be a long and hard recovery.

The first sections of the wall came down just a few months ago, allowing people who’d never been outside the district to see what was on the other side. Some parts of the wall will likely remain, serving as a reminder of what was fought so hard for. I’ve heard plans for murals, for the names of the dead to be carved into the concrete. There’s already one mural that I’ve seen, painted by trapped citizens as the rebels started to gain ground and the peacekeepers surrender. I was embarrassed by it at first, and still can’t look at it without feeling weird, but if anything it’s a reminder of how Peeta and I were important symbols to the rebels, and still are, despite everything. The mural depicts the two of us armoured, standing like sentinels, like gods, against a backdrop of the Capitol in flames. We gaze stoically out over the heads of all others, indestructible, eternal.

I was surprised to see Peeta there, alongside me. Not because he doesn’t deserve to be, but because he was imprisoned and then missing for most of the war. But I suppose that while I’m depicted as a warrior, bow in one hand, gun in the other, his weapons are holstered, hands loose at his sides. He is one of the fallen, in the eyes of many. He is a martyr for the cause, the one Coin sought to find in me but for which I was not willing to sacrifice for.

And there he is. Sacrificial. Martyred. A hero and a victim, the true symbol of a rebellion he never got to see.

* * *

 

We ride a train to District 1 next, sent there to meet with the leaders of Command-One. It’s a pleasant meeting, though I can tell they’re disappointed that the Victors they saw on television – and the _Mockingjay_ , no less – are, in fact, just human.

On the train back to Five, I can’t help but feel like I’m back on a Victory Tour, sat in  a plush train (one of the last to survive, since most have been gutted and used for supply runs), visiting the districts. That same feeling is in my gut, of having won something but lost so much in the process. And this time I don’t have Peeta. I don’t have Effie, not even Haymitch. If I step into the dining cart, they won’t be there, to understand, to comfort.

I don’t realise I’m crying until there’s a knock at the door of my bedroom and my cheeks are wet with tears. I wipe them away and stand, opening the door.

It’s Finn.

“Hey,” he says softly, tanned skin glowing under the lights of the chandelier above his head. “Can I come in?”

I nod, and stepping back. He closes the door behind him. We stand there, in silence, and then he folds me into his arms. What I was surprised to learn about Finnick is that he likes to comfort to people, that he likes to put his hand on a shoulder, and hug a person. I asked him about it, once, and he said it was different, this touching, because he got to initiate it.

“Thinking about him, huh?” he says, words rumbling in his chest. I don’t answer. He holds me for a minute longer and I close my eyes, inhaling, exhaling, calming down. He pulls away presses his lips together. He doesn’t smile too much anymore. Only smirks or frowns.

“There’s dinner in the dining carriage,” he says. “Don’t let it go cold.”

“I won’t,” I say, and he squeezes my shoulders, heading for the door again.

“Splash some water on your face first,” he advises. “You look a state, Everdeen.”

I snort. “Thanks, Finn.” He winks, and vanishes into the corridor.

* * *

 

There’s news awaiting us in Command-Five.

“We detected a signal in a closed-off quarter of the city centre, about seven miles from the perimeter,” says Jackson. Strata, her second-in-command, pulls a map up on screen. It’s a maze of streets and buildings, dotted with markers indicating disabled pods. “At first we thought it was nothing, the signal was so weak and irregular. Perhaps a piece of tech that managed to reboot itself. So we sent some soldiers to investigate and they reported signs of activity. They kept watch, and sure enough, apprehended a group of loyalists attempting to reactivate an old pod network.”

I stare at the footage on screen, of a team of soldiers from another squad breaking into a cell and returning fire at the loyalists inside.

“Why would they want to do that?” asks Boggs.

“Not for the weaponry, though that was our first thought. They didn’t want the pods themselves, they wanted the cameras and motion sensors attached. They were trying to break into the surveillance framework, though thanks to Beetee, they were unable to get past the firewall.”

“That’s… that’s the old hospital,” says Johanna, squinting at the map. “Why were they working from the hospital? That’s right in the middle of the city.”

“They were disguising themselves as medics to get into the building. Several wings were shut down, but there are a few still operational. They probably thought they’d be able to hide in plain sight.”

“That doesn’t explain why they wanted surveillance power, though. Are they looking for something, or just keeping watch?”

“We’re uncertain.”

“It’s just a few blocks from the training centre. Connected by tunnels, used to transport patients and goods without ever seeing the surface,” Jackson says. A schematics of the tunnel system, branching out from both buildings, appears. “Below the hospital and the training centre is, of course, where prisoners were held during the war.”

“So they were working from the hospital to access surveillance systems,” I say. “I understand reactivating the pods; that makes sense. But sensors and cameras? That’s a lot of risk. Pods would yield a lot more power.”

“They’re looking for something, then,” Gale says, his brow furrowing in concentration, the way it always does when there’s something to figure out.

“Or someone,” I add, thinking of one person and knowing that everyone else knows it.

“That’s our hunch,” Jackson says. “We just need to figure out who or what, and why.”

“There’ve been plenty of attempts like this before,” says Gale. “Loyalists are always trying to access surveillance networks. But this is… this is specific. This isn’t random.”

Boggs leans forward. “Who’s likely to be running around the hospital and training centre? Patients, medics, sure, but the training centre isn’t used for anything. It’s a health risk, that’s why the President shut it down. Those cells… they’re unusable. Who else is going to be _there_?”

“The doctors,” says Johanna, like the idea has just come to her. We all look over, and I watch realisation and ensuing dread wash over her face.

“What?” asks Jackson.

“The doctors. The scientists. Every sick bastard who worked at the place,” she says. “It’s obvious.”

“Why would they? The place is empty. When we got there, they’d taken almost all of their records, and we’ve destroyed or removed what remained. What else is there to find except dust?”

Jo shakes her head. “The Mockingjay is right,” she says. “They’re not looking for some _thing_ , they’re looking for some _one._ They don’t care about the reports of what they did. They’re looking for the _product_.”

“They expect to find their test subjects waiting for them? Twiddling their thumbs? Who in their right mind would go back to a place like that?” Gale asks. Jo fixes him with an acidic look.

“That’s what I’m _saying._ It’s not that ridiculous to suggest that the people they _tortured_ managed to survive the bombs, and that because they are no longer in their right minds, they came back to the only place they knew.” She curls her lip. “We’ve recovered survivors–”

“Not for several months now.”

“–and they’ve wanted to go back, to go back to the people who messed them up. Not because it was _safe_ or _right_ but because they were worried about being punished, or were scared, or because it was the only thing that made sense to them. Of course they’d want to find their prisoners. Of course they would.”

“The members of the cell… were they doctors?” asks Boggs.

“Two,” says Jackson. “Most were foot soldiers, the muscle.”

Johanna sits back in her seat. She glares at Gale, and he stares forward, ignoring her.

“Did any of them mention that in interrogation?”

“No. They were all killed on the scene,” Jackson says. “The two we could link to the prisoners weren’t significant, though. One was a nurse, the other was a guard. But they must have thought it was worth it.”

“They’re looking for someone,” Jo says with finality. “They want to take back what’s theirs.”

“You’re suggesting that Peeta Mellark and other missing POWs are running around the Capitol, and that these loyalists were trying to find them?” Jackson says, incredulous. She looks over to me. “Everdeen, you’re awfully quiet.”

“What else could be they be looking for?” I say, meeting her gaze. I know she thinks I’m insane for wanting to look for Peeta for all this time, but I refuse to back down. He would do the same for me. “The location, the surveillance… Johanna makes a good argument.”

“I still think lover boy is dead,” Jo says, but I don’t react.

“There are people we’re looking for all over Panem. Why wouldn’t they have their own list? And why wouldn’t it include people you think are dead?”

“We have eyes on these people. They’re protected. We took the appropriate steps long ago, and that doesn’t include chasing ghosts.”

“Hundreds of these people aren’t classed as deceased. We shouldn’t pretend they are.”

“ _You_ may think that looking for them is worthwhile, but I have to prioritise. I admire your persistence, but–”

“But what? He’s– they’re not classed as dead. We don’t have proof yet. No bodies. No records.”

“The war is over. You think they kept them alive after they lost?”

“Evidently you don’t,” I snap. Jackson’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead. Johanna laughs.

“This war has been long and hard, and I have seen too many good men and women killed to waste my time on ghost stories.”

“So give the responsibility to me,” I wager. “Let me waste _my_ time and _my_ energy. Let me look. You want to know what they were looking for? Let me find out.”

Fury bubbles away behind Jackson’s eyes, and she stares me down.

“Commander, she has a point,” Boggs says after a minute. “Everything about this suggests they wanted more than basic surveillance capabilities. And if Mason is correct, this could open up a whole new side to things that we need to investigate. We shouldn’t ignore it just because there’s a chance these people are already dead.”

“A chance? I’d say the odds were entirely stacked against them.”

“They were for us, not so long ago. And yet here we are, on the winning side.”

Jackson releases a breath.

“I’ll speak to the President,” she says tightly, like the words hurt her. They probably do. “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll discuss the matter.”

I nod, appreciative. Jackson dismisses us, and we scatter. Boggs remains. I hear her laying into him as the door slams shut.

* * *

 

Four days pass, and then I’m called to Thirteen to stand in front of Paylor and a board of her advisors to convince them that investigating this is more than just a narrow-minded attempt on my behalf to locate Peeta, years after he was last known to be alive. In the meantime, I have to contend with Gale’s questions, Johanna’s lop-sided support, and the knowledge that Jackson views it as a waste of time.

“This is only to do with him, isn’t it?” Gale asks in the cafeteria, eyes wide. I lift my cup to my mouth and shrug. Johanna, sat two space down with her legs kicked up on the bench, snorts.

“’Course it is,” she drawls. “Isn’t everything?”

“Catnip, come on,” Gale says. “I get it – I do. I’d do the same if it was you who was missing. But you can’t base everything you do on whether it’ll find him or not.”

“That’s not the basis of everything I do,” I say, offended. I’m narrow-minded, but I’m not an idiot. Jo snorts again and I shove her legs off the bench. “But Johanna is right. This is suspicious. I think that figuring out what they’re after is worthwhile if they think it is. Those loyalists wouldn’t be looking if they didn’t think there was a chance. And yeah, of course I’m thinking about him and whether that’s who they’re looking for.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Then at least I’ll know for sure if he’s dead.”

“He’s rat food, kiddo,” says Jo. “Sorry.”

“We thought you were too,” I remind her, and she pulls a face.

“What if they say no?” Gale asks me. “What if Paylor agrees with Jackson and says it’s not worthwhile?”

“Then I’ll find my way around it,” I say, grabbing my tray and standing. I fix him with a look. “I thought you had my back.”

As I walk away, Johanna begins to taunt Gale, only stopping to laugh when he tells her to shut the hell up.

In Thirteen, in front of the advisory board and Paylor herself, I explain my views, giving evidence and suggesting reasons. I tell them that this is worth investigating, that we know very little about what actually went on in those cells, and that ignoring the loyalist’s attempts to access this information would be foolish. I also tell the truth, in that I want to find Peeta, and that it is a motivating factor in my request.

But Jackson is right, they do question how much time and resources it will entail. So I make a compromise.

“A new objective,” I say. “Not a singular focus, a new mission, per se, but a side-project, if you will. Something to keep running while we complete our other missions, in the background. All the covert squads just keep on the lookout for anyone or anything related to it, and we see where it leads us.”

“And if it leads nowhere?”

“Then it’ll be me who answers for it. If it fails, I’ll be the only one at fault.”

“That’s awfully selfless of you, Sergeant Everdeen,” says an advisor. “Are you sure you know what you’re suggesting?”

I don’t waver. “I do.”

Paylor looks at me. We get on well, and I know she understands why I’ve been unwilling to give up. She knows how much Peeta means to me, and how indebted the rebellion is to what I sacrificed, what I lost, so they could come out victorious.

Finally she stands, commanding the room.

“Peeta Mellark was as much a part of the war as any of us. Without him, without Miss Everdeen, I don’t doubt the rebellion would have succeeded as it did. It is true that further investigation into the disappearance of him and so many others may only lead to confirmation of their deaths, but it will undoubtedly uncover much more valuable information that will aid us in the recovery of Panem. Peeta Mellark was symbolic of what we have fought for, what we continue to defend. We fought for freedom. Justice. And that means justice for all even the dead.”

She makes eye contact with me at that last part.

“I motion that all covert squad units remain vigilant for any information that could give us answers in relation to Mr Mellark and any of the others held prisoner by Snow and his regime. This objective will not take precedent over direct orders unless otherwise instructed. The location and destruction of Capitol cells is still the primary objective of all covert units. Squad 451 will be the mission head.”

There’s a brief murmuring, but it quickly stops.

“It will be up to Sergeant Everdeen to convince the members of her squad to join her for this task. She will be held accountable for all and any losses sustained as a result.”

I nod. My head is on the line.

Paylor lifts her chin. “You have six months,” she says. “There will be a review at that point to assess any outcomes, at which point the objective will be sustained or struck down.”

“Yes ma’am,” I say.

“You will report to Commander Jackson. She will coordinate within the mission.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” I say, ducking my head. “I understand.”

Paylor narrows her eyes, and then nods. A faint smile flickers across her features.

“I wish you the best of luck,” she says. “You are dismissed.”


	5. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> identity theft is not a joke, jim!

The station in Six is busy and he manages to slip away without an issue, melting into the crowds, hiding until nightfall. Then, he pilfers clothes from a line and dumps Marcin’s uniform but keeps the boots.

District 6 is no more familiar than the Capitol, though it doesn’t feel like a _bad place_. It also isn’t home. He walks past rubble, past what use to be houses, past camps and past where they’ve been rebuilding. They’ve done a lot in a year, but the footprint of the Capitol is clear in the shape of bombed-out buildings and craters in the streets and areas completely flattened. Intersecting it all are railways, crisscrossing back and forth, some blocked by rubble, most swept clean.

He watches the people around him. Some have set up stalls and are serving food. It’s welcoming, even if it isn’t home, with the sound of laughter and music and generators whirring and strings of lights strung here and there. The people here are happy. They are free. They understood the bad and fought back.

He sits and observes. No one bothers him, no one seems to notice. He can smell the food and his stomach aches. He needs to eat. He had those rations and that nutrition bar and now he’s _hungry_. It gnaws at his belly, a dull scratch.

But to eat he needs money, so he lets himself get engulfed in a crowd and slips his hand into the pocket of the man stood beside him taking a few coins and returning the pouch without the man even noticing. And then he walks back and joins the line at the stall selling something that smells rich and hearty and the voice leaps into focus, scolding him for _stealing from people who survived a war – what did you survive? You don’t deserve to eat_ but at the counter he asks for whatever the person before him had and the girl at the counter picks out the right coin for him when he gets confused without giving him a questioning look. She has a large, still-pink scar over the top of her head, though, so maybe she knows something about forgetting.

The food is a wonderful stew, hot against his hands, filled with meat and roughly-chopped vegetables, served with a dense brown rice that settles in his stomach and makes him feel warm. The spices make his nose water and he coughs and the counter girl appears with a bottle of water and a laugh.

“It’s not for everyone,” she says, walking back to the shop and leaning against the wall to smoke.

Once he’s eaten, he finds a railway track and follows it into a small neighbourhood of houses stacked on top of each other. It’s a poor part of town but hasn’t been bombed as bad, and there’s light coming out of many of them and voices too. He finds an empty one to shelter in, curling up on the couch. It’s not the mattress, but at least he’s not in the city.

* * *

 

_They take him from his cell, blindfolded, restrained. They push him along endless corridors and he tries to remember which way they’re going but there’s too many twists and turns and he can’t figure it out._

_And then they take off the cuffs and the blindfold and tell him to strip. His hesitation earns him a punch to the gut but all he can think about is Johanna and of what she said they did to her._

_But he has no choice, so he undresses, hunching in on himself, trying to keep calm. They throw a jumpsuit at him and tell him to put it on. He does so. It’s clean but itchy and starched stiff, digging into his neck._

_The guards lead him away, push him into another room. He waits for the strike of a fist or the sting of a baton but nothing comes. The door closes. There’s silence._

_He pulls off the blindfold. He’s in a room. It’s white. Everything is white. Floor, ceiling, walls. The lights. His jumpsuit. The room is empty._

_He doesn’t understand, at first._

_But then the hours pass but there’s no sunlight to help him, no clock, not a signal sound or display that tells him how long he’s been in the room. He listens and can only hear his pulse in his ears._

_Soon he hears things that aren’t there. Whispers. Screams._

_Once his eyes start to play tricks on him, he decides to sleep. But they won’t let him, blaring the lights and playing a high-pitched sound that feels like water in his ears._

_A hatch in the door opens and he runs towards it._

_“Hello? Hello? What’s going–” A tray slides in, and the hatch slams shut. A white tray. A white cup filled with water. A white plate. White food._

_He eats. He stares at the walls, seeing shapes and shadows lurch back and forth._

_He understands then, when he senses go against him. He knows that’s what they wanted, and god knows how long it took._

* * *

 

_The beatings do not stop. He thinks of his mother and wonders if she knew all along that this would happen. He longs for the dull ache of a rolling pin or the whiny screech of her voice when one of the guard’s boots strikes his chest and the baton screams high and static. He grunts, wheezes, retches._

_“Get up,” they tell him. “You know how to fight. Get up.”_

_He gets up. They knock him down. Repeat._

* * *

 

_They’re not going to get you. They’re not. You’re stronger than this, Peeta. You’re stronger than all of this you just have to last a little bit longer. You love her. You do. There’s a war. The Games are over but there’s a war. They will find you. She will bring you home. They're going to tell you she’s a mutt. She wasn’t using you, she wasn’t. It’s not true. You’re not her target. She is not yours. You love her you love her you love her._

* * *

 

_“It’s not working,” says one of the doctors. He reaches out, towards him, wanting to feel his coat. It looks soft and he wants to feel it. The doctor bats his hand away and he recoils at the rejection. The doctor doesn’t say sorry, doesn’t look sorry, doesn’t even look at him._

_“Tie his hands down,” he says instead, and some nurses do so. “It’s not working fast enough.”_

_“What do you suggest we do?” asks a mysterious figure standing beyond his line of sight._

_“That we abandon Nox. At least until we get more data from the other subjects. He’s our best shot and if we push him too far, I fear the damage will be irreversible. He’ll be a vegetable. We have to let him recover from this, and then we can start again.”_

_“You assured me this route would be the most effective, doctor. And so far all we have is this.”_

_“Sir, I–”_

_“You think this is acceptable? Do you? This-this,_ child _will not be able to kill the Mockingjay. I doubt he’d even be able to kill himself, at this point.”_

_The mysterious voice is angry and harsh and he doesn’t like it, lifting his head, whining. A nurse forces him back down. The mysterious voice makes a sound of disgust._

_“I’m disappointed, doctor. Given your record, I’d assumed you’d be able to condition him before the war escalated. And now, thanks to you, the rebels are gaining ground, and innocent lives are being lost.”_

_There’s a moment of silence, and then footsteps, and then a door opening and closing, and then the doctor curses and kicks something and then says the dreaded words._

_“Prep him,” he orders. Prep is never good. Never kind. Never leads to nice things._

_“Sedation?” asks a nurse. “But, sir, I–”_

_“That wasn’t a question,” the doctor says, and the nurses scurry and then there’s a needle in his arm, deep and dull into the flesh, and he winces, grinding his teeth, and then his body falls limp, caressed by silk. He smiles, staring up at the lights. The doctor scoffs._

* * *

 

 _“Peeta, please,” says the man, his red hair matted, his eyes pleading. He’s skinny, bruised._ Peeta _? That makes no sense. He isn’t Peeta, he’s the saviour, he’s the one who will stop all the innocent lives being lost._

_“Kill him,” comes the order, and the red man begins to sob. The sound is distressing. He holds up the knife in his hand and the man sobs harder, shouting, shaking his head._

_“Peeta – please, no, no, stop! Please, you know me! You do – no, stop! P–”_

_The man stops when the knife slides between his ribs and into his heart. He coughs wet and thick and his hand reaches up to touch his neck. He recoils. Why is the red man touching him like this?_

_He removes the blade. It gleams red. The red man falls down._

_“Good,” says the voice. A new hand on his neck, cold, fingers digging in. He drops the knife. Task complete._

_He is good. He is good at this._

* * *

 

He wakes expecting blood but there is none. He staggers to the bathroom and vomits. All that food from the nice counter girl, gone. He peels his sweat-soaked shirt from his back and scratches because the feeling under his skin is crawling and uncomfortable.

_You are good. You are good at that._

He shakes his head. The buzzing builds to a crescendo.

* * *

 

He spends the day in the apartment keeping very small and very quiet. He spies on the people in the street, knowing that going near them is not a good idea. He’s not going to hurt them, he’s not afraid of hurting them because he won’t. He only hurts the people who hurt him. But he fears stepping out and all the people of District 6 _knowing_ what he did and not caring that he didn’t want to do it.

He looks at his notebook and draws and writes things. Drawing is an easier task, faces coming to him quick and fast.

The next day he rummages through the house, ignoring the guilt in his stomach. He finds old pans, old cutlery, old children’s toys and old photos in smashed frames. He finds old clothes in the closet, all covered in a fine layer of dust and shakes them, packing a few items into his backpack. He reads the label on a shirt.

_Caleb Farrier._

He pulls on Caleb Farrier’s shirt and hides his backpack under a floorboard for safekeeping, and then goes outside. It’s sunny and the yellow light is hot on his head. He follows the railway into the town, into the square, and listens to a soldier speaking into a megaphone. He has a big 13 on his chest and is telling those gathered of the plans for the day, which is clearing rubble, building new houses, and reinforcing the buildings that still stand.

This is what he needs to do. He needs to earn things by helping out. Then he can get money and food and maybe the work will keep him and the voice distracted.

He asks a soldier for help and she points him down the street and tells him to find Marta. He finds Marta and she shakes his hand and smiles and tells him they’re happy with anyone who wants to help, and introduces him to her team of six others.

“What’s your name, kid?” she asks, and he thinks that being called _kid_ is a little stranger though he supposes he’s not actually as old as he feels. He almost says _Caleb Farrier_ but figures that these people might know who that is and know he’s lying so he says _Darius Dossenia_ instead, to keep things simple and consistent, even if they’re lies.

Marta nods. “This is Darius,” she tells the others. “He’s helpin’ us out today.”

And then they get to work. They’re salvaging old bricks for new buildings. It’s hard work in the sun but he enjoys it. The team are nice, especially Marta with her sharp tongue. They work well together, moving methodically through the rubble, chatting and laughing all the while. He doesn’t understand all the jokes but just likes to laugh along anyway.

In mid-afternoon they call it a day and he’s surprised when they extend their hospitality further by inviting him over for supper. He walks with them through the streets and asks them about what they’ve rebuilt and they happily point out a series of stout buildings newly put up, and the start of a new school.

The house they end up at belongs to Danny, a blond-haired man who lost his wife and two children in the war. Two of the team live with him. He took them in because they lost family too. It’s cramped but homely. He feels welcome, here, sitting at the table as Danny cooks. His apprehension about people has faded, since the people here are much nicer than the ones in the city.

Being around people who don’t know him, although counterproductive to his goal of finding out who he is, is refreshing. It’s a clean slate.

“So, Darius,” says Marta, adjusting the scarf tied around her head. “I haven’t see you before. Are you from Six?”

He tries to think of an answer but Danny scoffs and speaks first, leaning against the counter, wooden spoon in hand. “How can you be sure?”

“How can I be sure _what_?” Marta asks.

“How can you be sure you ain’t seen him before? I didn’t know you and you lived three streets away from me!”

Marta rolls her eyes. “You don’ use your eyes, Danny. That’s why you didn’t know.” She looks over to him and smiles. “Darius, please, tell us about yourself.”

So he pretends, again. Smiles. Keeps his hands hidden so they don’t see the shake.

“I’m not from Six,” he says.

“I knew it,” Marta grins. “You don’t sound like you’re from here.”

“I don’t?”

“No, but I couldn’t tell you what you sounded like. Never left Six, you see.”

They wait for him to tell them where he’s from but he stops, frowns, doesn’t know what to say. _I can’t remember_ , he thinks, and then realises he’s spoken aloud again. He waits for laughter or for them to kick him out for being strange, but Marta pats his hand.

“It’s okay. I know plenty others who forgot. You’ll remember soon enough.”

Later that evening, Marta beckons him over to keep her company when she goes out for a cigarette. He stands two feet from her, staring at the dusty street, inhaling the smoke. She offers it to him and he takes it and tries it and it burns his throat. He coughs, and Marta is amused, but he likes the sensation. It’s similar to the quiet he felt when he knocked out Marcin and stole his uniform.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Marta says after a few minutes. She offers him the cigarette again. “With the questions about your home district.”

“It’s okay,” he says quietly, taking a drag. “You didn’t know.”

Marta nods, staring up at the night sky, blowing smoke out of her nose. “There’s been a lot of people like that. Did you get caught in a blast, or something? You got the look of a soldier.”

“Something like that.”

“Why’d you come to Six?”

“I was in the city,” he says. “I just wanted to leave.”

“The Capitol?” Marta asks, and he sees the hostility she tries to hide.

“I don’t remember,” he lies through his teeth.

“So you’re not from Six, and you’re not from the Capitol. You tryna find your home?” He nods. “Where’re your folks, kid? Young guy like you, they’re bound to be somewhere, lookin’.”

He frowns. “I think they’re dead.”

Marta nods. “You gotta make your own family, then. A new one. New Panem, new you, new family.”

The smoke curls up from her mouth as she speaks. She drops the butt and crushes it against the dust.

* * *

 

A few weeks pass. He likes Marta and Danny and the others and helps out a lot. He eats and drinks and sleeps and manages to hold the nightmares and the memories at bay. It’s not perfect, but it’s damn close. If all else fails, he thinks, he would come back here. Make a new family.

One night, he’s at the bar next to Danny, and Danny nudges him and says there’s a cute girl who’s been watching him.

“Go for it,” Danny says, and he looks over his shoulder and blushes at the girl who smiles and waves.

He shouldn’t, he’s drunk, but the girl comes over and she is cute, all big blue eyes and long dark hair, and he finds himself saying yes when she asks him to dance, enjoying her hands on him and enjoying putting his hands on her. He feels normal. It’s a revelation. They laugh and she invites him back to her place, shushing him as they climb the stairs because nine other people live in the small building, and then she kisses him and it feels good. He suddenly remembers kissing other girls, before. Long ago. Before the city and the bad things, he had kissed girls and it had felt good.

After a month pretending to be Darius Dossenia, he’s feeling comfortable. Settled. The alcohol certainly helps. This girl is soft and warm and lets him pull her shirt off her body, blushing when he stares. She yanks at his shirt too and he lifts his arms and then she gasps and says _oh shit, what happened to you?_ and is staring at the _bad things_ still lingering on his skin and then she sees _Caleb Farrier_ on his shirt collar and frowns and he cuts her off before she can speak, pulling the shirt back on.

“I don’t understand,” she says, and he stalks towards her.

“He’s dead,” he tells her, and she trips back until she’s against the wall and he doesn’t realise he’s gripping her arm too tight until she whimpers. “He’s dead,” he tells her, before turning on his heel and fleeing.

He goes back to the dead man’s house and grabs his backpack and a pair of rusting scissors and chops out each label until there’s seven _Caleb Farriers_ and _C. Farriers_ lying on the floorboards. And then he pulls on a jacket and slips the backpack over his shoulders and feels the alcohol fading and the buzzing returning. He gets to the station, smuggles himself onto the first train, and is gone before the sun has started to rise.


	6. Katniss

Jackson isn’t particularly happy, but she sees the merits of figuring out what a bunch of doctors and scientists from the Capitol are doing, hacking into surveillance systems.

She brings 451 in to Command-Five.

“Everdeen has a favour to ask of you all,” she says, and I stand as she takes a seat. “I trust that you hold all questions and criticisms until the end.” She looks pointedly at Gale and Jo.

I feel my palms beginning to sweat. I know what I’m asking these people to do. I know that half of them think looking for Peeta is a waste of time, but hope that they’ll be drawn in simply to figure out the pod mystery, and ignore my selfish motives.

As I begin to explain, Jo laughs, Gale’s mouth falls open, and even Boggs looks a little exasperated. They all knew what was coming, though, so I don’t dwell on it. I just keep talking, building up more and more evidence.

“It’s just a secondary objective, really. We’re still destroying Capitol cells, that’s not going to change. But if we come across anything related to these doctors and scientists, we’ll follow up on it. Paylor’s given me six months. If it goes wrong, if it leads to nothing, it’s on me. It’s on my head. All I need is your support.

I pause, looking around. “You have two days to make up your mind.”

“Fuck that,” says Jo. “I’ve made up my mind already. Though I don’t think lover boy is alive, I’m more than happy to help you take down the scum that messed with me and my friends.” She slams her hand on the table. “I’m in.”

I can’t help but smile. “Thank you, Johanna.” She gives me a mock salute.

The others don’t seem ready to give answers. The Leegs are muttering to each other. Gale is staring at me like I suggested we go on our next mission dressed in full length gowns.

“I am no longer part of Squad 451,” says Jackson. “But as your coordinator and your Commander, I will do my best to ensure the mission runs smoothly. You should know that Mr. Abernathy and Ms. Trinket are also on board, albeit indirectly, and that Beetee has removed himself as head of the communications team to focus on this.” She stops, raises an eyebrow. “You’ve managed to accumulate quite a following, sergeant.”

I feel warmth blooming in my chest. It’s a good feeling to have people on my side, even if they don’t agree with what I believe. I expected Beetee’s involvement since he’s always spoken well of Peeta, but Haymitch and Effie are technically retired, now. They shouldn’t be involved in any of this. They’ve been in District 4 for over a year now, soaking up the sun, allegedly staying out of the gossip stream, though everyone and their neighbour knew that wasn’t going to happen.

He still feels obliged to Peeta though. I know he feels guilty for never bringing him back, for failing me when I made him promise that Peeta would be the one to survive the Quell. The last time we spoke about him together, I could see the hurt in his eyes. And Effie has always loved him. I expected nothing less but steely determination from her.

I’ll have to visit them both, give them an update in person.

I ask the others – Boggs, Homes, Mitchell, the Leegs – but they all want to think a little longer. I look to Gale.

“You really think he’s alive, don’t you?” he says.

“I thought that was clear.”

“This is a colossal waste of time. We have a mission and we shouldn’t be side-tracked just because you want to find a body to bury.”

“The mission won’t be side-tracked. If anything, this is complimentary to it.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t _expect_ you to do anything,” I say sharply. “I just want you to join me, though I understand if you choose not to.”

“That’s a lie,” says Johanna.

“Stay out of this, Mason,” Gale spits.

“This is not a playground, soldiers,” Jackson barks. Gale’s nostrils flare.

“You’ve seen Panem, right? Seen that it’s wasteland? How can you believe we’re going to find one person in all of this?”

“We’ve done it before,” I remind him. “We found Snow’s granddaughter.”

“Thanks to a super-lucky tipoff, and after I got shot.”

“We found Vick, too. When he vanished? We found him.”

“He was lost, not vanished.”

“I’m not asking you to run into the direct line of fire for me. I asking you if you’re willing to work with me if we find information regarding what they did to those prisoners. And if we need to fight our way out, so be it. We’ve done that for the past three years, we can damn well do it now.”

Gale sighs, scrubs his face with his hand. “So what, he’s alive, sure, I can pretend for a minute. If that’s the case, how come he isn’t here? Why isn’t he standing at the top of the fucking presidential mansion telling everyone he’s there? If he’s alive, why is it that we’ve heard _nothing_ about him or from him? If I were him, I’d be right by your side here, not gadding around Panem.”

I know that smacking Gale is the wrong thing to do but by god I want to. Finnick luckily speaks up, and his voice soothes me a little.

“I understand your arguments, both of you,” he says. “I want to go home first, think about it.” He pauses. People think he’s naturally well-spoken, but few know just how much time he spends planning what he’s going to say. “We never did get confirmation of his death. No evidence. And Katniss is right, he could be alive out there. But Gale makes a good point, as to why he hasn’t made contact. But, knowing what he must have gone through… why should any of us assume that he’d be the same person we knew? He won’t be the same, if he’s out there. We’ve all changed, and he must have more than anyone.

“I think that if he _is_ out there, he hasn’t come to us for a reason. But whether that’s because he can’t get to us or because he doesn’t want to or for something else, he, and everyone else who suffered, deserves to have justice. The people who did this must pay. It’s not enough for them to be in hiding, for us to know where they are but do nothing. So I think you already know my answer, but I want to think about whether I want to join this mission first. I have Annie to think of.”

In the end, only Johanna and Leeg 1 agree to join. The others want a little longer. Gale says nothing, and I don’t see him until the next day, when he’s sat at another table in the mess hall, his back to me.

“Honestly,” says Jo, stealing the bread from my plate. “You’d think he was five years old.”

* * *

 

The two days pass. I see the various members of Squad 451 but don’t try to pressure them, just letting them make up their own minds. Most of them never even met Peeta, but they all know how much he meant to me, to the rebellion, and how investigating this could not only give power to the rebels and assist in the stopping of Snow and Coin’s remaining allies, but give me an answer. The thought of living on without ever knowing the truth fills me with dread.

Homes, a man of so few words that I’d almost forgotten he could speak, sits beside me at lunch one day, and then talks. For five whole minutes.

I’m amused and amazed. His voice is soft and though it’s clear he’s rambling, I don’t mind listening. Usually the only thing I hear from him is kill confirmations over radio. He’s our best shooter, and, it seems, the most level-headed person on the squad. The two attributes go hand-in-hand.

“I will join you,” he says. “While I agree that if it leads nowhere it will be a colossal waste of resources we don’t have, I know Peeta Mellark was a good man, and that he and all the others who were imprisoned in the Capitol deserve justice.”

I’m moved by his words, unable to keep the wobble out of my voice when I thank him. He just shakes his head.

“We have been at war for a long time,” he says sombrely. “I will do whatever it takes to avenge those who suffered most.”

I’m nervous when Jackson calls everyone to base so they can give their answers, staring at my lap as Jackson goes around the group. Leeg 1 and Johanna confirm that they haven’t changed their minds, and Homes joins them, as do Leeg 2 and Mitchell. Boggs, giving me a look that says _on your head be it_ assents as well.

“Odair?” Jackson calls.

“Annie told me she just wanted everyone to be safe. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel that way, knowing the people who did this are still out there. So yes, I will accept this secondary objective.”

I smile at him. He reaches over and squeezes my hand.

“Hawthorne?”

I look at Gale. He looks at me. These past few years have been tough. The fallout from the Games, from the war, they’ve wreaked havoc on our relationship. Though he knows that I’m never going to feel the same way about him as I do Peeta, he knows that I still respect him. That despite everything, I have his back, like always.

“I’ll do it,” he says. “It’s only six months.”

“Gosh, you’re such a saint, I can’t believe–” Johanna begins, but Jackson cuts her off.

“I’m impressed, Everdeen. Everyone is on your side again.” She lifts her chin. “Your six months start now.”

* * *

 

With the squad on board, I immediately begin working with Jackson. She directs me to Beetee on the communications level.

“I’ll comb through everything we have,” he says, eyes flickering as he scans through pages of numbers, letters, maps, diagrams, and more. It’s everything we have that’s related to the prisoners and torture; locations, known perpetrators, known victims. There isn’t much, but it’s a start, and I’m pleased that it ties to closely to our main objective of destroying Capitol cells. “It shouldn’t take long. The majority of the encrypted data we have has been freed anyway, and I’ll compile everything into one unit so you can begin looking for patterns and such, get a picture of where you stand.”

“You think we’ll get something useful?”

“I’d be surprised if we didn’t. This is a veritable goldmine, and with this new objective, we’ve got a much narrower focus, a much finer mesh to sift things through.” He pushes his glasses up his nose and smiles. “I’d been suspicious of a few things for a week or so now. Just little things that seemed connected but I couldn’t actually link.”

A map appears of Panem, covered in markers. “You’ve been tracking them?” I ask.

“Alongside the usual stuff. They hide the best they can but there’s always a trail to follow. And they’ve left a trace.”

“Is it intentional?”

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

With Beetee and his team of technicians working on gathering everything we have on what went on in the Capitol, I go to Jackson to request that all the bases are made aware that we’re looking for anyone involved, whether they were scientists or just janitors. Jackson agrees, and a notice is sent out, indicating possible persons of interest. One of those people is Peeta, though my compromise is that he’s lower down on the list.

I sit and wait, then, hoping and praying for something, anything. Not only to show Jackson and Paylor that this is worthwhile, but to prove to myself that I’m doing the right thing.

Sure enough, four days later, we’re called into base.

“We found evidence of loyalists trying to break into an old data bank beneath the dam,” Jackson says. “Snow ordered for records to be destroyed when the war ended, but there are copies left, hidden in banks all around Panem. This was one of them.”

We silently watch the helmet-cam footage of the covert squad from District 1 breaking into a huge compound built into the dam just south of the Capitol and discovering a huge bank of computers.

“Thanks to Sergeant Everdeen’s notice, the base in District 1 pinpointed a member of the cell as an ex-guard and realised what was going on before more records were lost. We have recovered data for over thirty thousand citizens.”

A day later, Beetee comes in with an update. They’ve gathered thousands of documents, and sifted through endless files in an effort to figure out if there’s something bigger occurring than cells just trying to destroy data or attack rebels and citizens.

“We synced everything,” Beetee explains. “Maps, projections, mission reports, whatever we could get our hands on. So far, nothing that can pinpoint the location of Mr. Mellark or other prisoners. If anything, they’re been a distinct _lack_ of files related to him. But we’ve made a good start in pinpointing people who may have been involved in what they were doing in the training centre.”

“Are they intentionally hiding data?” asks Gale.

“That is a possibility. We just don’t know yet. There are gaps everywhere but we’re working to fill them.”

“In the meantime, you’re to focus on the known cells, the known individuals that we can bring in,” says Jackson.

“I agree,” Beetee adds. “If we poke around too much, they’ll notice.”

Our next mission comes later that week. We’re needed in District 8, where it’s believed that one of Snow’s advisors is in hiding there. Paylor wants him extracted and taken to Thirteen for questioning.

We leave in a hovercraft around midday. It’s drizzling when we leave Five, and pouring when we get to Eight. It’s a sprawling slum district of twisting streets, old buildings, and huge mills and chimneys overshadowing it all. It’s been two years since the chimneys stopped coughing out black smoke, but the streets are still dusty, the soot getting into your nose and under your eyelids. The air is clearer, though. I can taste the grittiness of the air when we touchdown, but to the people who live her, they’ve never seen the sky so blue.

Heading straight to Command-Eight, we’re briefed on the situation. We’re after Anthonis Soyza, one of Snow’s most trusted and longest-serving advisors. How he managed to live so long, I have no idea, but I know that whatever he did can’t have been pretty. Why he’s gone into hiding in District 8 is anyone’s guess, but his time is up.

We wait until nightfall and leave the base through the tunnels, which spit us out in a narrow alleyway surrounded by what used to be homes, and is now rubble and crumpled steel. It’s eerily quiet as we move, scrambling, keeping low, and I can feel my heart racing. This isn’t a complicated mission, but for some reason I’m on edge. There’s a tension in the air and a tightness in my chest that I can’t shake.

Up ahead, Boggs signals for us to keep low. We’re getting close. We split into two teams of three. Gale, Boggs and myself in one, Homes and the Leegs on the other, hanging back to keep watch, guns trained on what appears to be nothing more than an old house, abandoned, war-torn. Inconspicuous. Our intel tells us that Soyza is there, though, hidden. It’s believed he has information about Snow and those closest to him that could be vital for our cause.

I listen to the others whispering into the comm system as we approach.

“We have the building surrounded. No signs of movement,” says Leeg 2. Gale, Boggs, and I pull our masks on, covering our noses and mouths. Gale tosses a gas canister through a smashed window. It lands and hisses as the gas escapes. After ten seconds, we burst in through the front door, guns up, moving seamlessly to clear the ground floor. Empty. Boggs points to the stairs, and we climb, boots heavy on the rickety floorboards.

We clear each room, one by one. And then we reach the bedroom. Gale steps in first.

“He’s dead,” he says, surprise evident in his voice. I hear Leeg 1 whisper _what?!_ in my ear.

“What the hell?” I say, rounding Gale, Boggs at my six. Gale is right. Anthonis Soyza is dead.

I go to him, press my fingers against his neck in search of a pulse. There isn’t one, but he’s still warm. The blood oozing from his nose, mouth, and ears is gleaming, bright red.

“This was recent,” I say. “He’s warm.”

“Poisoning?” Gale asks. Boggs looks troubled, but nods.

“Pack the body up,” he orders. “Base will run a diagnosis.”

He steps way, speaking into his comm, explaining the situation to those waiting back in Command-Eight. Gale and I manhandle the body into a bag. Leeg 2 enters the building to help carrying Soyza away.

“I don’t get it,” Gale says, as we head back to base. “No signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle. He couldn’t have known we were coming, right?”

“I doubt it’s a leak,” Boggs says. “This is something else entirely.”

Boggs is right.

“Poison,” says one of the medics in Command-Eight, a tall thin woman with lines around her mouth. “Derived from nightlock, designed for a quick death. Administered via a false tooth. My early guess would be suicide.”

How? _Why_? After successfully remaining in hiding for so long, why would he kill himself now? Did he know Paylor had ordered for his extraction, or was this just a coincidence? The timing is too close for me to believe that it was by chance. Two years hidden, and then, just before rebels come in to take him in for questioning, he offs himself, taking with him everything he knew. It’s too close for comfort.

On the hovercraft back to Five, I sit beside Boggs, thinking it over and over in my head, trying to work it out.

“I’ve informed Jackson,” Boggs murmurs. The others are trying to sleep. Gale is stood by a window, stoic. “She’s reporting to the President.” He sighs. “Either this is a catastrophic leak from our side, or Soyza knew something we don’t. Something that made him think that death was a kinder option than anything else.”

“What happens if it’s a leak?”

“It’ll mean everyone will be investigated. This could be a major security breach,” Boggs says. He shakes his head, and stands. “We can’t do anything until we’re back at base, Everdeen. Try to get some rest.”

“Yessir,” I say, and he walks away.

I don’t rest. I sit and I think. Gale joins me after a moment, elbows on his thighs, hands clasped together.

“I don’t think this is us,” I tell him. “Everything about the mission was covert. No one could’ve informed Soyza. But the timing isn’t an accident. He knew someone was coming after him.”

Gale is glum, his eyes shadowed. “I thought the war ending would make everything a little more black-and-white,” he says. “I thought it’d be easier to tell who the bad guys were.”

“You of all people should’ve known that wasn’t going to happen,” I remind him.

“I guess some people just can’t give up hoping, though, huh?” he says, looking up at me. I pat his knee.

“I guess not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out my pinterest page for the board i created for this fic @saturnblushes


	7. Peeta

_Stupid_ , says the voice. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. For leaving like that. You think that girl will forget? You think that was smart? You never should’ve left. Not because of one girl._

District 8 is not much different from Six, but he knows no one and knows nothing and hates that after a month of making _friends_ and figuring out what he was doing he’s left and thrown it all away.

He wakes on the roof of a building, using his backpack as a pillow, sheltering under an old ventilation shaft. It rained a little, but was nothing he couldn’t handle. He climbs down into the muddy street and buys food with the coins he has in his pocket. It’s not as good as the food in Six.

He sits under an awning and watches the people, keeping his collar up by his ears and his cap low over his eyes. Small and still and quiet. No one pays him any attention, but he listens to and follows everyone else. There are four middle-aged men sat at the table next to his, mud up to their knees despite the early hour.

“Smithy said he saw a hovercraft taking off a few hours before dawn. Wasn’t a normal one. All black painted.”

“Probably meant to be a secret, then. Smithy’s gonna get himself in trouble if he keeps spying.”

“We all know it’s Paylor’s secret police. They’re everywhere.”

“You don’t trust that it’s in our best interests?”

“I don’t know. I don’t trust anyone with secrets.”

“Well shit, you can’t trust anyone then.”

“Exactly.”

* * *

 

He spends the next few days lingering and listening. He gathers a lot of information. Small things, like where the communal washrooms are for those without permanent residences, and bigger things, like where President Paylor is sending engineers next. And middle things, quiet things, whispers and rumours. A public notice is sent out, posters pasted on walls, beamed onto screens, telling civilians to watch out for suspicious behaviour and report anything to a member of military personnel.

This makes him stop. Makes his stomach lurch. Is he _suspicious behaviour_? Surely what he’s doing, watching and listening, is suspicious. People will know that he’s not from here and will be able to tell that he’s no good, be able to smell it on his skin. It’s really only a matter of time before someone spots him and reports him and then he’ll be locked away.

He hears a lot of things about _the mockingjay_ , about a girl who was on fire. He learns that she’s _part of the elite squads, now. High-ranking. Does Paylor’s bidding._

_She’s loyal, I’ll give you that._

_She’s mad. They’re mad, for letting her out into the field. After the Games, the war, losing her fiancé… she shouldn’t be in charge of automatic weapons._

_Fiancé? You seriously believed that was real?_

_Yeah, I did. Maybe not at first, but you could tell in the Quell. It was real. It’s too bad he’s dead._

_Too bad she killed him, you mean._

This girl sounds dangerous, whoever she is. She was engulfed by flames, she’s mad, she killed her fiancé. They should be looking for her, not for him. Still, he watches his back. His time in District 6 has made him lax, made him comfortable, made him forget that the people who used him are still out there and will try to find him, and will succeed if he’s not careful. Either he’ll find them, or they’ll find him. Or, perhaps, _the mockingjay_ will find him. She’ll swoop down and grab him and he’ll go, happily, if it means he won’t have to go back to the city. Anything is better than that.

 _The mockingjay_ and the President are looking for people, he learns. A soldier talking to a colleague says so, and doesn’t realise there’s ears listening in. _Notice from Command-Five to look out for the people working for Snow after the Games. And guess who’s on the list? Peeta Mellark._

_He’s dead. They’re wasting time._

_If he was dead, why would they be looking for him?_

He worries about this ‘Peeta Mellark’. Firstly, because he must have done something pretty significant to be on a watch list, and secondly, because that name sounds familiar, rooting itself in his head. Most things don’t do that, but this name does. It sticks. Perhaps he’s heard it before. Maybe he knew the guy. Not that he’d remember it. The things from _before_ are shadowy, loose. But the sense of déjà vu that sweeps over him when he hears that name makes him think that the guy was a big part of his life, so he clings to it, and waits. Perhaps one day it’ll make sense to him.

* * *

 

The nightmares get bad again. Not that they were ever good, but being on guard at all moments has made him jittery, restless, and it echoes in his unconscious, in bloody flashes against his eyelids.

* * *

 

_“You’ll end this war,” says the doctor. “You know what you have to do to stop the fighting.”_

_“It’s not this—I’ll never do it.”_

_The doctor smiles. “You will.”_

* * *

 

_“Hey, you’ve got to listen to me, okay?”_

_It’s the girl. Jo—Josie? Johanna? Jane? She’s next door. She’s talking through the wall and he wants to listen but his head is ringing and everything aches._

_“Hey,” she says. “This is what they want. They want you to give up! You have to promise me, okay? Promise me.”_

* * *

 

_He can feel sweat sticking his shirt to his chest. He can smell the sharp tang of bleach. The metallic ring of blood. A voice swims over him, muffled, and then clear, an ebbing tide._

_“… into something that can be… weapon and kill her. Kill the… the war. This is how we …”_

_He moans, because it hurts, damn it. It’s a full-body sting. Someone prods him in the side._

_“This is the first step, doctor. The procedure has already started.”_

_“We don’t have long. Katniss Everdeen… Snow wants her dead. It’s the only way.”_

_Katniss? That name, it sparks something, he needs to find her, protect her, get her away from all of this, keep her safe, get away from the mutts – the birds, the birds are screaming – get away, get out of here, go!_

_“Katniss?” he says, panic lancing through him._

_“She’s a mutt,” says the doctor. “That’s right, she’s a mutt.”_

_“A mutt?” he asks, confused. Why would he want to protect a mutt?_

* * *

 

His hair is still long. It hadn’t bothered him before but in the rain it’s limp and unruly and he just wants it gone.

There’s a barbershop just off the main street. It takes two days to work up the courage to step inside. He’s been keeping to the night, lying low during the day, but the barber closes up overnight so he has no choice. Thankfully it isn’t busy, and the barber tells him to take a seat and offers him a hot drink. Then, he asks him what he’d like done. He gives neutral, perfunctory answers. Short, a little longer on the top. Like he’s seen the other men wear their hair.

The barber talks for the both of them, not caring that he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t seem to notice how he stiffen at the sight of the scissors, at the sound of the buzzing razor, and he grips the armrests, knuckles white, but the voice, deep and bellowing says _calm_ and he breathes out and goes still, relaxing his shoulders. He focuses on his hair receding instead, cropped closer and closer to the skull.

The barber offers to shave his beard. The voice says _yes_ so he says yes too.

The face revealed to him when it’s clean shaven is not less unfamiliar, but it feels better. He notes the strong jaw, a thin, old scar on his chin. With the beard, he didn’t even know that it was there, but he can see now that it’s evidence of him being someone before all this. Of course, he knew that, but this reaffirms the truth. Still, there’s something _off_ about his face. Uncanny. Like he’s wearing a mask.

He’s not the only one to think he looks strange, apparently. The barber eyes him as he totals up the cost of the cut and shave.

“What?” he says gruffly, pulling his hat down low over his forehead. He thinks of the notices, of the advice about suspicious behaviour.

“You famous or something?” asks the barber.

“No,” he says. Of course he isn’t famous. Famous people are from the city, and he is _not_ one of them.

The barber stares a few seconds longer, and then shakes his head. “You look weirdly familiar, son.”

“I’m no one. I came from District 6,” he shrugs. The barber says _okay, sure_ , and hands him his change.

He leaves the store and doesn’t look back.

* * *

 

The next day it’s raining hard. He’s glad because it makes the streets a little quieter. The encounter with the barber has spooked him, because no one has ever thought he looked familiar, no one has ever looked at him like that. One part of him says it’s a good idea to go and ask the barber who he thinks he is, but the other, louder part says that he shouldn’t go looking for trouble.

Soldiers mill around, miserable in the rain. People queue for food, sloshing through the mud. He joins the line, collects his rations, and then goes back to the falling-down house he’s been hiding in for the past week and a half.

The rain and cooler air are harsh against the exposed skin of his neck and face. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to after so long with hair reaching almost to his shoulders and a beard, but he feels cleaner. The short hair feels right, somehow. He feels more like himself, as useless as that phrase is.

Ration packet in hand, he stands back to let an armoured truck pass by, and then crosses the street. He feels eyes on him as he walks, and he looks across as if he’s checking that the road is still clear, and makes eye contact with a soldier stood on the corner. The soldier is watching him through the haze of the rain and the dull morning light. He averts his gaze. Keeps walking.

_Report all suspicious behaviour to the nearest member of personnel._

_You famous or something?_

Dread hits him, dull and fast-moving. This was inevitable. First the notice, then the barber, and now the soldier.

He ducks around the corner and makes several left turns to make sure no one is following him, and then retrieves his belongings from the house, goes to the station, and buys himself a ticket to District 2, because it’s the destination of the next train. When the ticket clerk asks for a name, he says Darius Dossenia.

* * *

 

On the train, he comes to some semblance of a conclusion.

People are on the lookout for suspicious people, for dangerous people, and they are starting to realise that he falls into that category. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, no civilians are at risk because of him. But the people who tried – succeeded – to make him dangerous are out there, and he’s felt the desire to hurt them.

 _They aren’t civilians. And they deserve to get hurt,_ says the voice. _You are dangerous to them. They are afraid of you._

The voice is right. He was someone, someone with a scar on his chin, who became something else and then woke up as this. And that’s _their_ fault, not his. Perhaps he deserves all this, this existence as a half-person, this shadow dressed in flesh, but that doesn’t mean it was his fault, his doing. _They did this._

 _Yes!_ shouts the voice. _Yes, that’s right. They did this and you did not deserve it. They are bad things and they let you rot._

He stares at his hands. They’re shaking.

 _Well?_ says the voice. _What are you doing to do about it?_


	8. Katniss

I accompany Boggs to District 13 in order to report to Paylor on the events in District 8. She’s angry at the loss of such a good source of sensitive information, relieved it didn’t end up in the hands of loyalists, and frustrated that Soyza seems to have gotten the upper hand.

“Time of death approximately one hour before discovery of body,” she muses, reading over the report. “That’s too close to be nothing.”

“It has been suggested that there is a leak, ma’am,” says Boggs.

Paylor frowns. “I’ll call for an investigation into a possible leak. I don’t think that’s the case, but we have to be sure.”

“None of the others have killed themselves,” I say. “Everyone else we’ve apprehended… they all wanted to live. Either he knew something big, or he was scared of someone other than us.”

“A rogue cell, perhaps,” suggests Boggs. It’s a possibility. Splinter groups have popped up all around Panem, some branching out from Capitol- or Coin-aligned cells, others from the rebel side, others from somewhere in-between. We’ve been pretty good at keeping track, but shadowy groups have always existed, and I doubt we’ll ever be able to stamp it all out. Containing it, staying one step ahead – that’s the best thing to do.

“We’ve been tracking him for months. I’d like to think we’d have picked up on that, but who knows,” Paylor sighs. “They’re getting better at hiding. I suspect this is just the beginning of something bigger.”

I leave District 13 later that day. I’m eager to get away, but Boggs stays a while to visit some old friends. There’s a hovercraft heading to Five that I jump onto at the last minute, only to learn that it’s stopping in District 12 on the way.

I haven’t been home for months. It’s been recovering well, despite the utter devastation suffered after the firebombing. A lot of people from Thirteen emigrated into Twelve, and a new factory producing medicine has been built, the mines shut down forever. It’s my home, but it isn’t _home_. Not like it used to be.

There are civilians on board the hovercraft, a real mix of old and young. Most recognise me, though. The soldiers salute as I pass them, but the civilians stare. Children whisper too-loud in their parent’s ears and are hushed. I don’t mind it too much anymore. It’s only natural for them to do so. I’ve done the same when I’ve seen people I’d heard a lot about. It must be strange though, to realise that _the mockingjay_ is just a normal person like they are, plain-looking, unassuming. I hope they’re not disappointed that Katniss Everdeen, symbol of the rebellion, is human after all.

The craft lands a little way from what used to be the town square. I pull the hood of my jacket over my head and keep to myself as I walk along half-familiar, newly built streets. I shouldn’t really be here. It’s unofficial and I know Boggs would kill me himself if I got in trouble. _I looked out for you all through the war, and I’ll be damned if you trip and die out in some place you’re not meant to be_.

The rubble has been cleared, the unsalvageable buildings torn down, the bodies buried. The fence has been repaired and electrified to keep the mountain lions and wolves out though there are dozens of gates spread along the border. People are no longer trapped. The new factory is a gleaming beacon, shiny and new and _good_. There’s a monument to all the miners who died deep below the earth by the old southern mine entrance.

Gale and I were formally invited to the unveiling ceremony, but we declined, instead hiding at the back of the crowd. We knew our presence would take away from what really mattered. We stood and listened as our fathers' names were called out.

Much of the Seam has been cleared and study, sensible homes have burst from the land. The cut between the Merchant Quarters and the Seam is no more, two sides united at last.

The bakery was torn down years ago. A memorial is there now, but that dumb apple tree remains. I think people are a little superstitious about how it managed to survive bombs and droughts, and aren’t willing to cut it down.

I spot Delly Cartwright from a distance, looking happy and healthy, carrying a child on her hip. I think to approach but stay hidden. What would I even say to her? _I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your parents. I’m sorry about Peeta. But hey, you look well._ I know she’d only ever welcome me with open arms, but I’m not quite ready for it yet.

Of course, the Victor’s Village still stands. At first it was used to house survivors, but mine and Peeta’s houses stay empty. It’s selfish, I know, but I can’t give them up, especially not Peeta’s. Haymitch organised for a local couple to look after them, letting them live in his old place.

I stand at the gates and stare at my house. It’s grey and cold and so clearly empty, but it’s intact. Everything inside is just how I left it. One day I’ll clear it out, figure it out. But today is not that day.

When it begins to rain, I head back for the hovercraft. It takes off ten minutes later, and I watch District 12 vanish behind rolling grey clouds from the window.

* * *

 

The entirety of Squad 451 is granted leave by Jackson the next week. We’re still on call, and expected to drop everything if an order comes through, but we’re free to do what we want.

“You seeing the kids?” I ask Gale as we walk out of base and to the barrack apartments. I’m in an oddly buoyant mood, despite the lingering bitterness of the failed mission in District 8, the threat of a possible leak, and the constant hum that is _find Peeta_ in the back of my mind.

Gale grins. “Yeah. Rory’s turnin’ eighteen so I’m going to surprise him.”

I gape. Whenever I think of Gale’s siblings, I think of three kids aged fourteen and under, not almost-adults. It puts into perspective just how much time has passed since the first Games, and that time stops for nothing.

“I know,” Gale laughs at my expression. “He’s still my kid brother, though. I don’t let him forget.”

“Does he know what job he wants?” I ask, aware of how a few years ago, that question would have been pointless to ask. Rory, like Vick and Gale, would be in the mines till the day they died. And now he has the entirety of Panem at his feet. It’s a mind-boggling concept. He could be anything. He no longer has the Games or the fence to reign him in.

It may be too late for me. My life is dedicated to the war and the rebuilding of Panem, now, but for others, the sky is the limit. It’s what I fought for, it’s what I’ll spend my life defending.

“I think he wants to become a pilot,” Gale says. “I told him not to join the army, but I guess it was inevitable.”

“You putting in a good word for him?”

“No need. He’s already charmed the recruiters in Seven. Ma told him his cheek could only get him so far, but you know him.”

I smile. “I’ll try and fly over if I have time,” I tell Gale. We stop at the stairwell separating Gale’s floor from mine.

“Where’re you going?” he asks.

He probably assumed I’d go visit my mother. She’s still in Thirteen, toiling away. But we keep in contact through monthly letters, and at the moment, that’s more than enough. I think we both need the distance.

“Four,” I say.

“Seeing Haymitch?”

“Rescuing him from Effie, if possible.” Gale doesn’t _get_ Haymitch like I do, nor Effie. He’s still prickly about Capitol citizens, though that’s not really a surprise. But Effie is a friend, and she’s kept Haymitch alive all this time, so I can’t fault her.

“Tell them I said hi,” Gale says, scuffing his boot against the floor. “And tell me how Four is. Ma wants to visit.”

“Have a good time in Seven,” I reply.

Gale drums his hand against the banister. “Have a good time in Four.”

I salute him as I climb the stairs. He smiles and watches me go.

* * *

 

There isn’t a hovercraft heading to District 4 until the following day, so I board the train instead. It’s a short trip of a few hours, and I have a private cabin, so I get some sleep. I intend to relax at Haymitch’s place, but also know that I’ll need sleep to handle him and Effie, and the past few weeks have had me running on fumes and not much else.

I wake with half an hour still to go and sit by the window to watch the scenery rush past. The train speeds through the old border between Nine and Four, a huge wall topped with barbed wire. Inland, Four is nothing more than wide, flat desert, but the closer we get to the coast, the greener it becomes, until suddenly there’s nothing but palm trees, sand, and blue sky. I smile at the sight. I understand why Finnick and Annie love the place so much, why Haymitch and Effie decided to stay.

Peeta said he wanted to see Four again. We were only there for an evening during the Victor tour, enough for me to dip my toes in the ocean and for him to stay on the sand.

I disembark quickly when the train arrives, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. I look like any other soldier, still in my black uniform. I’ll have to change, though, given the temperature. I follow the general flow of people, looking for Haymitch. He said he’d wait by the entrance but I’m shorter than most and don’t see him until he bellows ‘sweetheart, over here!’ and shoulders his way through the crowd.

“You look good, Haymitch,” I say, taking in his washed hair, neat-ish clothes, and slight tan. “Effie’s treating you well.”

He pulls me into a tight hug. “She’s killing me,” he says, but the words are fond and when he pulls away I see a gleam in his eye that I never saw before. The smell of liquor is there, but much fainter. I knew Effie would never get him away from the stuff, but he’s lost some weight, cut his hair, and looks a thousand times better than the man he was in Thirteen.

He doesn’t offer to take my bag and I don’t expect him to, hooking my thumbs behind the straps as we walk down the street. I can already hear the ocean, and the air smells of salt and seaweed.

“How was the journey?” he asks after a few minutes of companionable silence.

“Fine,” I say. “Only a few hours.”

“How’s Five?”

“Good. Rebuilding fast.” He nods. District 4 wasn’t hit so bad. In some areas, you’d never even had known there was a war. “Where’re you living now?” I ask. The last time I was here, he was in an apartment that he hated but I know they’ve moved since then.

“Found a house nearer to the coast. Eff picked it out. I had no say in the matter. Nor in the interior,” he says. I grin.

“Eff?”

“You’re not allowed to call her that,” he says gruffly, and I laugh out loud.

We reach his house after walking along the busier strip and beach, and over a fairly shallow cliff and into a smaller bay. It’s isolated, quiet, and beautiful. Haymitch points out Victor’s Island in the distance, a green smudge against the ocean.

“You been?” I ask.

“Yeah. Finnick gave me keys, said we could stay in his place if he wanted, but it was too quiet. And everyone else who lived there is dead, so we didn’t stay long.”

Haymitch and Effie’s house is set back from the coast, wedged halfway up the gently sloping cliffs. It’s small, but it’s bursting with character. Driftwood and stone, aged by wind and water, painted an off-white, with green windows and doors and a porch wrapping around the front.

“I can’t believe _Effie_ wanted to live here,” I say. “Does it even have power?”

“Solar.”

We must be a hundred meters away when someone appears in the doorway, dressed in blue and white. It’s Effie. She starts to run, shouting my name, arms outstretched.

“I told her you were coming,” Haymitch mutters, shaking his head.

“Katniss, my goodness, darling,” Effie exclaims, coming in and hugging me tightly, a cloud of perfume and soft fabric. “How are you? You must change out of those awful clothes – you look like a soldier!”

“I am a soldier,” I remind her. She cups my cheeks in her soft hands.

“Ah, yes, a _sergeant_. You’re still my girl to me, though.”

I smile. “It’s good to see you, Effie.”

She hugs me and talks and talks and talks. Her hair is blue and still curled atop her head, and her clothing _screams_ Capitol, still, but there’s something softer about her, like the distance and time from the place has worn away at the artifice of it all, leaving behind what I see before me.

I change into more weather-appropriate clothing and dump my things in the guest room, and then join them on the porch to chat and sip fruity drinks. Although we’ve stayed in regular contact, there are still things to say, and half of it is stuff already said through letters and phone calls but that needs repeating in person.

They talk a lot about Four, about what they’ve been up to since I last saw them. We talk about everything and anything until the sun begins to set and I realise I’ve forgotten how nice it is just to sit and chat about something different than strategies, body counts, and destabilisation tactics. Talking about the mundane, about what I ate for dinner, about the weather – it’s never been so thrilling.

To my surprise it’s Haymitch who cooks, though Effie reminds me that she never did when she was in the Capitol so he’s much better than her, which is really saying something, and we eat sheltered from the dry heat of the evening, the space illuminated by the lanterns strung around the porch, the tide a gentle woosh in the background.

I tell them about Five and Thirteen and about the squad. About how Panem is doing. Haymitch asks specifically about Johanna, Finnick, and Annie. I tell them everyone is okay, everyone is just fine.

“And your cousins?” asks Effie.

“Good, all good,” I say. We never did tell her that the Hawthornes aren’t really family, but it doesn’t hurt her, since it might as well be true. “Gale’s visiting them at the moment.”

“And what about _you_ , sweetheart?” Haymitch asks. “You’ve talked about everyone but yourself.”

“I’m fine, Haymitch. Tired, but that’s part of the job.”

He can always see right through me though, and gives me a disapproving look.

“Mr. Latier contacted us,” Effie says. She takes Haymitch’s hand. “He told us about your secondary mission.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah.”

Effie’s face crumples slightly. “I think that’s awfully brave of you. I’m so glad Madame President agreed.”

“And the rest of the squad. I assumed there’d be some resistance,” says Haymitch.

“There was. But they agreed to help. And it’s not just about Peeta. The odds are that we’ll never find him, but at least this way we can avenge them. Punish the people who deserve to be punished.”

The conversation stalls, and Effie announces she’s going to bed. She kisses Haymitch on the cheek and me on the top of my head like I’m a child, and then leaves the two of us to sit alone on the darkening porch. I stare at my drink. He stares at the darkness engulfing the bay.

“I’m sure you’ve heard it a thousand times, from a thousand different people,” he says after a while, his voice low but enough to be heard over the waves. “But I know you, sweetheart. I know you’re going to put everything into this, I just want you to be careful, okay?”

“You don’t think he’s alive.”

Haymitch scrubs his face with his hands. He reaches for his glass but it’s already empty. “Eff does. I don’t want to crush her spirit.”

“Not hers, maybe,” I reply. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

He doesn’t respond for a long while.

“He survived District 12. Two Games. And we saw him in the Capitol after three months of imprisonment. He was alive then.”

“But?”

“But three months is a lot different than three years. Panem isn’t _that_ big. It’s awful difficult to lose someone like him. You think if Finnick was walking around all confused no one would see him and tell everyone in a ten-mile radius?” He pauses, looks at me. “You said it yourself. The odds aren’t in his favour.”

“They never were.”

“I don’t want to give up on the boy, you know that. But I have to be realistic. If he were still alive, we would’ve found him by now.”

I nod. I don’t want to get upset. I’ve had plenty of time to learn to suppress my feelings. But this is different. It isn’t Johanna being sarcastic. It isn’t Gale telling me not to be stupid. It’s Haymitch, my mentor, the closest thing I have to a father figure, telling me that Peeta is most likely dead. And what hurts most is that he’s probably right. He usually is.

“You’re gonna get hurt by all this, kid. Are you prepared for that?”

“I’m already hurt,” I say. “I can handle it.”

“I’m serious,” he says, and I’m suddenly reminded that this man has had countless kids die on his watch, and that in his eyes, I’m the only one left. And he must still think that he failed me, in not bringing Peeta back home.

“I just have – I have a _feeling_ ,” I say. “It’s stupid, I’m pining over him because I didn’t realise how much he meant until it was too late, I know, I know. But I can’t give up. I won’t. He’s alive out there. I know it.”

Haymitch nods. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled, then.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “You know they all think I’m crazy,” I tell him. “Coin did. Jackson definitely does. Everyone looks at me and I know they’re wondering why I’m allowed to work with Paylor and the squad even though I’ve lost my mind.”

Haymitch stands, grimacing slightly, and pats my shoulder. “Sweetheart, I’d be concerned if you hadn’t.”


	9. Peeta

Something happens to him on the train to District 2.

His understanding of the world has started to tilt. He realises it’s been going on ever since he became fully cognisant of his being in the city and not belonging, and gradually, inch by inch, the tilt has become more acute, and now it’s beginning to trip him up.

And god, he _hates_ it. That’s what he’s come to understand. He hates that this is the state he’s in, nameless, faceless, with no clue of where he should be. He hates that all he remembers is what they did to him, that they took away the things he had before and left a bad taste in his mouth. He hates that he’s lost so much, and that recovering it is proving to be so godamn hard.

He had no hand in what happened to him. He didn’t want it, but it happened. He can’t go back. But forward is so difficult when he can’t remember his own name.

But people are looking for him. He is _dangerous_ and he is the _suspicious activity_ civilians have been warned about. He doesn’t want to be, but he is. They made him that way—or did they? Did they really have to try that hard, or was this always part of him? He has a feeling it’s the latter, and thinks that maybe he deserves all this. Who’s to say he was a good person before all this? He hopes he was, though he has no way of knowing. So maybe all this was inevitable.

_They did this and you did not deserve it. They are bad things and they let you rot._

Is the voice right? Or is he hearing what he wants to hear?

_What are you doing to do about it?_

What _is_ he going to do? He wants to find home, find the people who knew him before, who will put together all the broken pieces of his memory for him. That he’s sure of. But the bad people, the doctors and the scientists and the politicians; they’re still out there, they’re still free to destroy. They taught him to destroy. They wanted him to end the war in their favour. And while that may not have worked out so well, he is still what they made him to be, if one not bound so tightly. They taught him to destroy. _And that’s what you’ll do_.

* * *

 

Everything in District 2 is made of concrete. It is grey and grey and grey. Heavy buildings sat on wide, flat streets, the greyness melting into the mountains, snow-capped and lilac in the early morning light. It is a district of stone, cold and unforgiving. The people are the same way, harsh and hard.

There are a lot of soldiers, here. In every street, on every corner, guns in hand, helmets buzzing. He cannot loiter here, cannot draw attention. He thinks of the soldier watching him in Six. If that happened here, he knows he’d be dead before noon.

So he retreats. Stays low. He can’t be recognised, not here. The voice, quiet and fearful, tells him not to get caught.

* * *

 

Late one evening a few days later, he stands in line to buy a hot meal. It’s been raining all day, a steady downpour that makes the streets gleam with puddles and gutters _drip drip drip._ Boots splash, tires gush. He wants to get back inside.

He has his hands in his pockets, his collar up, his cap low. It’s an easy disguise in this weather. Water trickles down the back of his neck and his lifts his hand to wipe it when someone yelling catches his attention. He looks. It’s a man, on the wrong side of drunk, being kicked out of a bar. The others around him look away soon enough but he can’t pull his eyes away, watching the man wave off wary soldiers and stumble across the street.

He knows this man. It’s the first person he’s recognised, and it’s not a good thing. Not a good thing at all.

He steps out of the line and follows the man. Walks casually, sidestepping puddles.

_“Fascinating,” says a man’s voice, slightly out of breath. “Absolutely intriguing.”_

_He feels a low dull tugging in his stomach. His mouth his dry. There’s a bright white light above him and he feels his hands twitching in the restraints._

_“If you look here–” the tug persists, “–you’ll see the liver. Now, what do you notice?”_

_“It’s… the venom. There’s no scarring.”_

_“His body has started to metabolise it, has grown used to the dosage.” Another tug. There’s a steady beep by his right ear, the sound billowing out purple and blue and green. “I didn’t think it would work this fast, but he’s getting through it quicker than it can hurt him.”_

_“But I thought that was the point. To maintain his pain threshold, not destroy it completely.”_

_The man laughs. “He can still feel pain, dear. He’s feeling it right now. But the venom-induced psychosis… it allows him to detach from the sensation. Look, you see there, that line?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“That’s the venom. In any other patient, it would induce powerful hallucinations. It does the same for him, but rather than inhibiting, it numbs.”_

_“You’re using venom as anaesthesia?”_

_“That’s exactly right. Try turning off the line.”_

_Footsteps, a blurred figure at the edge of the light. A hissing sound. The tug is still there but now it’s sharpening, it aches, it grows, slides under his skin. He blinks. The beeping gets faster._

_“You see… we cut off the supply, and the effects wear off.”_

_He moans. His teeth clench on the gag. He feels sound bubbling up from his chest. It hurts. God, what are they doing to him? Where are they? He tries to focus but the pain is so present, so close to him, that his eyes just roll and roll._

The drunken man turns left up a set of steps. He follows at a safe distance. The voice is encouraging him, telling him to keep going, to feed on the rage boiling hot and potent in his head, telling him _destroy destroy destroy._

They did this to him. It was _them_ , not him. They tore him to shreds and then they left him like he was nothing, like he didn’t matter to them anymore, and they went on and now they’re just here, drinking at bars and walking around as if they never did anything wrong.

The voice screeches. _They hurt you! They did! What are you doing to do about it?_

He’s going to stop them. Stop them hurting anyone else. Destroy them like they destroyed him, taking away everything he had, everything he should’ve been able to keep, everything that never should’ve been taken from him.

He follows the doctor, angry, shaking with it. It’s a darkness, a darkness they unearthed and left twitching like an exposed nerve. It’s a block, dropping into his head like sand. It’s a monster, jaws yawning wide, demanding to be fed at long last. They built the monster but forgot to feed it, and now it’s come to bite them.

The doctor enters another street. Stops outside a door, fumbles for his keys. The street is quiet. One open window a few houses away funnels conversation into the night. The man steps into his house and he waits. He waits and then finds a back alley that draws up to the house where he watches until the man turns out the light and heads to bed.

He waits for an hour, and then climbs over the wall and into the tiny courtyard at the base of the house, and then pops open a window and slips through. It’s a hallway, dark and still. Tiled floor, concrete walls. He pulls the window back in place and finds the staircase. Ascends without a sound. A snore rips through the quiet and he finds the bedroom, pushes open the door, and finds the doctor sleeping inside, a shapeless lump in the bed.

He stands over the doctor, like the doctor did to him. Watches him breath. The monster begins to salivate.

He pulls the doctor up by his arm. The doctor wakes, splutters, chokes, looks fearful for a split second before his face slackens courtesy of one hard hit to the head. He carries the doctor out of his bed, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. Sits him in a chair, finds something to restrain the man. Satisfied that the he’s not going to be able to break free, he takes a seat opposite, and waits, strangely calm. There is no buzzing. The monster gnaws and he tells it _be patient_.

When the doctor wakes, he breathes hard and loud and gets a sock shoved into his mouth for the trouble.

“Doctor,” he says pleasantly. The doctor blanches. “Do you remember me? I remember you. I don’t remember much, but I remember you.”

His voice sounds monotone to his own ears, a dull, reverberating clang.

“I didn’t expect to find you here,” he says. The doctor snorts, a rush of air through his wide nostrils. “Nor you, me.” The doctor narrows his eyes. “I will removed the gag. If you shout, I will kill you.”

The doctor nods. He pulls the gag away and his hand curls into a fist.

“You’re going to kill me anyway.”

The doctor’s voice makes him feel queasy, bringing back that awful tug in his stomach. He sits back down and the doctor watches him. It’s unsettling, to be looked at like this. Like he’s an animal, pacing back and forth behind a thick pane of glass.

“Why are you here?” he asks, surprising himself by choosing to ask that first.

“I am a war criminal,” replies the doctor, in that hissing accent all Capitolites have. “What choice did I have to hide?” He lifts his chin like he’s proud. “And District 2 was the lapdog of the Capitol; I knew I’d find shelter here.”

“Are the others here?”

“The others? No, we’re everywhere. Did you expect we’d simply disappear? No, no, we’re in every district, in every street, doing the president’s good work, freeing—”

“There is a new president. You lost the war.”

“But the cause never died.”

His chest tightens. The monster eyes its prey, reassessing.

“I must admit I’m surprised you’re alive,” says the doctor, seizing the upper hand. “Though perhaps I shouldn’t be. You were, after all, our longest-standing subject. I should’ve known you’d crawl up out of the rubble.” He tilts his head. “I told them it was a mistake, leaving you and the others to fend for yourselves.”

He frowns. He woke up alone in the street, woke up alone in that apartment.

The doctor smiles. “The war ended, the bombs fell… we scattered. It was always our plan, to hide and regroup later on. We followed that plan through in every way, except for what we’d do with you. You should be dead, but some of them were softer, and some of them just didn’t care what happened to you.”

The voice stamps its foot. _Don’t let him get in your head. Don’t let him._

“The irony is that most of them are likely dead, now. I thought you would be, a real shame too. But you always did surprise me. You resisted for the longest, and then reacted best to the treatments. The original goal might not have been reached but then we changed our objective and well, then we succeeded, didn’t we?”

“Where are the others?”

“The others?”

“You. Other doctors. Everyone left.”

“Why would you want that? Don’t you want to go home, find your family?”

“Where are the others?”

“You’re planning to track us down.” The doctor laughs. “But there are too many of us and only one of you. You will fail.” He clucks his tongue against his too-white teeth. “I suggested humane disposal but they wanted to leave you, thought that without the right parameters you would be a lost cause.”

“ _You_ failed, then.”

“Oh, I’m not certain I did. While I’m surprised you’re alive, I’m not surprised that you want to come after us. A bit of revenge, yes? Though it’s too late for that. The war is over, the rebels took down the Capitol. And revenge doesn’t taste as sweet when you’re already on the winning side. What would your sweetheart think if she knew you were alive, only to be spilling more blood, and on her hard-won soil no less?”

He knows what the doctor is doing, talking over him, at him, like he’s a child. But _sweetheart_? He had a sweetheart?

_You know you did. You know it._

The doctor makes a sound. “You don’t remember a thing, do you?” He stands, the chair scraping against the floor, but the doctor doesn’t even flinch, just keeps observing him with a clinical coldness. “Six months after any dosages, after any treatment, and yet here we are. It worked better than I expected. And you must be aware of how much you’ve forgotten—”

“Stop,” he says, voice rough in his throat.

“No memory of yourself, your family, your friends. Do you even know your own name? Do you even recognise your own face?”

He screws his eyes shut, shaking his head. “Stop.”

“I assume some things have started to come back- we couldn’t wipe every memory, but I’m amazed at how deep the effects are. No recognition… the superficial changes will fade soon enough and perhaps that’ll prompt some cognitive retrieval… I can’t be sure.” The doctor tilts his head. “I am impressed, especially seeing you here, operational. The withdrawal must have been a drawn-out process. You can’t have been out of the Capitol for long, no, not alone.”

“Stop _talking_ ,” he commands. “Stop.”

“Autonomous in every way, but _empty_. An almost complete removal from the self.”

“I want answers,” he says, taking a breath. The doctor cannot control him like this again. He can’t. He won’t let him. “Where are the others?”

“What are your plans? Finding as many of us as you can, and then what? What if you fail? What if you _succeed_? What will you do then?”

“I will get my answers,” he says, feeling the monster salivate, strain to break free and devour. “Killing you—killing the others; I will not fail.”

“A merciless killer. That’s all you are?”

The monster lunges. The chain wrapped about its neck creaks.

“That’s all that’s left? This is the result of all our work… a mindless, ruthless, killing machine, seeking to destroy what—”

He steps forward and twists the doctor’s head in his hands until his eyes bulge and the bones in his neck crack. The doctor slumps, finally quiet.

The monster smiles. His hands shake. There is no blood, no screaming, no guilt. They wanted him to destroy, and that is what he is doing.

The buzz returns, soft and static between his ears.

* * *

 

He has to move fast. He searches the property, the voice telling him _move move move you don’t have much time._ Outside the sun is beginning to rise and he can’t be seen in the house of a dead man. He finds a collection of documents, old records. He doesn’t understand them and they give him no useful information, no names, no locations of other doctors and scientists, so he sets them alight and lets them burn.

* * *

 

He slips into an abandoned house opposite the doctor’s property to watch, just in case. There are no soldiers, no neighbours, no one to find the body, until that evening, when a young woman – too young – enters the house. He expects her to scream and flee, but she makes no noise, no fuss, reappearing a few minutes later, securing the door, and hurrying down the street, out of sight.

He does not recognise her, though he doesn’t think he would recognise many. The guards and nurses were often masked. He only really remembers the worst of them, the ones who did the really bad things.

He tracks her across the district, to a cottage by the train tracks. The tenement is small, unassuming. He breaks into the cottage after an hour passes and no one comes back out. It is quiet and dark. He sidles along the entranceway, listening. There’s a voice upstairs, the hum of conversation. Female. He places his foot on the bottom step.

A fist flies out and he stumbles in surprise.

“Don’t move,” says a voice, and the barrel of a gun is pressed into his temple. “How did you find Macar? I know you killed him.”

In his peripheral, he sees a man. Tall, thin. Possibly an orderly, a nurse, but he can’t be sure. He was more afraid of the doctor and it seems like this man was too—they all were—but the gun is steady I his hand.

“Luck,” he says, calm. The man digs the gun into his temple.

“Bullshit. Who told you?”

“ _Luck_.”

“How did you find me?” asks the man. “Macar didn’t have addresses, he didn’t—”

He moves fast, grabbing the gun, twisting until it’s aimed under the man’s chin, and securing his free hand. “Where are the others?” he asks. The man’s nostril’s flare, his eyes widen with fear.

“I—I don’t know what you mean, I—”

“The doctor. He said there were others. Where are they?”

“If you think I’m going to—”

“Your wife. She’s upstairs?”

The man exhales. “She—she has no idea. She doesn’t know, she’s from here, from Two. She doesn’t know I was working in the Capitol, on the project, she—”

“She was at his house.”

“I told her he was my uncle,” the man hisses. “Please—she doesn’t know.”

Suddenly, he recognises this man. Not his face, but his voice. Hissed words behind a surgical mask. He was close with the doctor and the doctor’s work.

“Where are the others?” he asks, slower this time.

“I don’t know! I don’t know! We’re everywhere—I can’t—we radio in but I can’t tell you—”

“The radio. Where is it?”

“The bathroom.”

“Show me.”

He uses the gun to corral the man. The man points to a cabinet above the sink. “There.”

“Where are the others?”

The man quivers. “Please, I don’t know. I don’t.”

He presses the gun against the man’s crown. There’s a beat. He knows the man recognises him, knows who he is, knows _what_ he is, that he’s scared of the doctor’s creation just as much as he was the doctor. The man breaks.

“There—there are six, six in District 4. I have addresses, with the radio, but I—”

The guns goes off, almost silent. The man slumps forward, skull cracking against the tiles. Blood oozes. No screams.

He steps over the man and pulls open the cabinet, finding the radio and a small file with the addresses of six people living in District 4. He reads over them quickly, and recognises some. He climbs the stairs, gun in hand. He expects the woman to be waiting for him but she’s cowering in a child’s room, an infant in her arms.

“Please—”

_Destroy. Destroy the ones who did this to you. Leave the innocent._

“He was lying to you,” he says. The woman stutters. “He was lying. He is from the Capitol. He worked for Snow. He tortured people. He tortured me. He lied.”

She hunches against the wall, watching him. The infant is quiet, hands grasping the air.

“Please,” she whispers. “Please don’t kill me.”

“I’m not here kill you.” The baby coughs. The woman stares at the gun he carries. “I killed him.”

The woman sobs. He looks at the baby. She cries harder.

He turns on his heel, closes the door behind him, and descends the stairs. The man is lying on the floor. He retrieves his ID card from his pocket and leaves the house.

At the station, he uses the dead man’s ID card to buy a ticket. The first train is to District 4, a happy coincidence.

* * *

 

In the bathroom on the train he pulls open the little window and tosses out the ID card and the gun. He braces his hands on the faucet and feels the sway of the carriage, hears the hum of the engine. He expects to feel the monster tearing at him, or hear the voice bellowing, or for the buzz to have risen from a static to a crackling electric but all he hears is silence. All he feels is calm.

The light above his head flickers. He looks up.

Dark hair, darker eyes. Pale skin, a few days’ worth of facial hair. A bruise forming over his jaw.

He stares and he stares but there’s nothing. _An almost complete removal from the self._ There’s nothing. No name. He certainly isn’t Darius or Marcin or Caleb.

The light flickers again, and he frowns. His eyes. They’re black. He knows this.

But in this light… they almost seem… _blue_.

He jerks closer to the mirror and stares. Black. Blue? A depth to the black, a hint of something else. He shakes his head. No. _No._


	10. Katniss

I don’t get to visit the Hawthornes in person, but I video call from District 4, sat on the beach in the sun. I’m struck by how much Rory looks like Gale, with his fledgling beard and determined grey eyes, but there’s a softness there that he’s inherited from Hazelle. I wish him a happy birthday and speak to the others. Gale looks calmer in the presence of his family, and it’s strange to see him in civilian clothes.

They’re all well. Everyone is well well well.

I spend the rest of the week walking on the sand, swimming in the ocean, experiencing the life Haymitch and Effie have been working so hard to make for themselves. Even though the beach reminds me of the Quell, I do manage to relax. I get some much-needed sleep. For a moment, I can be just Katniss.

Returning to Five reminds me that being _just Katniss_ will forever be fleeting, though. Back in the barracks, back in Command-Five, I’m a soldier, and I have responsibilities.

Jackson welcomes the squad with a three-hour report, relaying the events of other covert missions, explaining new developments, introducing new strategies we need to be aware of.

Beetee and his team have found no evidence of a leak, and though the issue isn’t completely removed, it’s reassuring to know that Soyza’s premature, unexpected death wasn’t caused by a failing on our side. Though, that does open a whole new line of inquiry, as to what he knew and how he knew it.

“And as for your other objective,” Jackson says, once Beetee has concluded his speech. “I have nothing new for you. No new leads yet.”

I blink. “Nothing? At all?”

“We had two people in District 12 who said they’d seen Peeta. It wasn’t him.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes. I’m not going to lie to you, sergeant.”

“We’ve had these things before,” Beetee reminds me. “People thinking they’ve spotted celebrities… just a few weeks ago there was a frenzy when a rumour got out that Caesar Flickerman was in District 1, and we all know he’s dead.” Beetee smiles wryly at me. “We might not have located Peeta specifically, but the notices you asked to have sent out have already proved useful.”

He projects a list of names and numbers onto the screen.

“These are the records from the dam. We’re almost finished recovering them. They’ve been invaluable at relocating people. This isn’t a wasted effort.”

I nod. I’m glad of this, of course I am. But I’d hoped for a little more. Not that’d expected Peeta to present me with Peeta’s exact coordinates, but something, _anything_ , would have been nice.

To keep myself occupied in-between briefings and missions and coordination planning, I spend a lot of time training in the barrack gym. I didn’t like the rigorous physical training at first, but my time in Thirteen and here has allowed me to get used to it, to like it, even. I become restless and irritable if I don’t get to do exercise regularly.

Gale joins me, happy to spar or practice at the gun range. Finn tags along too, boasting that although his physique is natural, he likes to maintain it. Jo is my favourite gym buddy, though, knowing just when to talk my ear off, and when to shut up.

“How’s the old man?” she asks as I sweep my hair out of my sweaty face.

“Haymitch?” I ask, and she nods. “He’s good. Healthy, almost. Four has done him some good, Effie too.”

“I don’t get them two. Never will.”

“I think it’s been a long time coming. You should visit them. You’d get it then.”

“Not in Four,” she says, furrowing her brow. “Lot of water there.” She changes the subject. “Hawthorne saw his folks?”

“Yeah. In Seven.”

“I knew they’d like it there.”

“You think you’ll go back?”

She shrugs. “Do you think you’ll ever go back to Twelve?”

It’s a difficult question to answer. Sometimes I think I will, other times I can’t bear to think of the place. So much has changed. Too much, maybe.

“I’m needed here. That’s all I want to think about right now.”

* * *

 

Over the next few days, reports drift in and out, none particularly relevant, until one morning, I wake to someone hammering on my apartment door. I stumble out of bed, limbs aching and stiff from a long sparring session against Finnick the day before, and see my comm flashing from where I left it on the countertop last night. It’s still dark out, the sun just barely beginning to rise.

“Katniss?!” Gale bellows from the hallway.

“I’m coming,” I grumble, fumbling for the locks and pulling the door open. “What is it?”

“You checked your comm?”

“It’s the middle of the night, Gale, no,” I say, stepping away to scoop the device up. It’s a high-priority alert.

“Jackson just received a report from District 2,” Gale says. “Two people were found dead there overnight. One was on our watch list.”

This wakes me up immediately. I run to my bedroom to throw on some clothes, shoving my feet into my boots and scraping my hair from my face, securing my comm around my wrist as I run out the door.

Gale theorises all the way to Command, but he knows just as much as I do, which is nothing.

“Take a seat, please,” Jackson says when we arrives, Mitchel trailing in after us, looking half-asleep. “I apologise for the hour, but this is an unexpected development that effects not just the squad’s secondary objective, but the objectives of all the squads in Panem.

“I’m sure you all recognise the name Appius Macar,” she says. A photo flashes onto the screen, of a middle-aged Capitol man. “He was a prominent figure in Capitol medicine, a pioneer in genetic studies. He became the head of his department at the age of twenty-seven after being appointed by request of Snow. From there, he began to focus on human experimentation, particularly related to behavioural manipulation.”

A selection of photographs scroll past. Macar in his office, Macar at swish Capitol events.

“We suspected that he was one of the leaders of the team involved in the imprisonment and torture of various individuals during the war, and Beetee’s work decrypting files has confirmed his involvement.”

Johanna glowers. “He’s a psychotic son of a—”

“ _Was_ ,” Jackson interrupts her. “He was found dead two days ago in a safe house in Two.” A new photo appears on screen, of Macar, tied to a chair, neck clearly broken. “He was found by a civilian who believed he was the uncle of her husband, Carrin Asbury. He too has been found dead. She reported that after finding Macar, she informed her husband, who told her to keep the information to herself, hence the delay in the report. A yet unknown man then broke into their home and executed her husband before disappearing.

“She believed Asbury was a civilian. She was unaware that he was once under the employment of Macar, or that he was involved in human experiments.” Two more photographs appears. One of a tall, thin man, and another, of him lying on a bathroom floor, a bullet hole in the back of his head.

“Jesus,” Gale mutters from beside me.

“This is the work of one individual?” asks Boggs.

“We believe so. Whoever they are, they killed Macar and searched his property for something. He then located Asbury and killed him, taking the radio Asbury used to communicate with other surviving colleagues from the Capitol. He then used Asbury’s ID to purchase a train ticket to District 4.”

“You must have footage, then. At the station?” Gale asks.

A short, fuzzy clip appears, following a figure along a street and into the station in District 2. It’s fuzzy and pixilated. Even in the screengrabs, the man is cloaked in shadow, unidentifiable.

“Two Capitol scientists, dead within one night, and that’s the best we have?” Jo says, sounding as frustrated as I feel.

“The base in Four has been alerted, of course, but we don’t know who this individual is, how he managed to track down two Capitol loyalists, one of whom even we didn’t have a location on, or what he’s going to do in Four.”

“So he’s doing our work for us,” Gale concludes. “Clearly with superior intel.”

“We can only wait and see what his next move will be. It can be assumed that he’s going to Four in search of other scientists, other doctors, anyone involved.”

“You’re just going to let him go after these people?” asks Leeg 1.

“We can’t extract everyone who’s at risk. We need to maintain our own cover,” Jackson says. Somehow, even at this hour, she looks presentable, calm. “It’s possible that this individual, whoever he is, is part of something bigger. I can’t see this being the actions of one vengeful person. It has to be a network, and intervening too soon would only put our own mission at a disadvantage.

“I agree,” says Beetee. “Our best course of action is to observe. Whoever he is, we’ll catch him. Clearly he’s not trying to be subtle. We’ll try to intercept him, try to figure out who else is involved.”

A moment of silence falls over the group. We’re all thinking hard, half because we’re all just barely awake, and half because this is a surprise to say the least. Who is this person, how did he find Macar and Asbury, why is he going after them? This could be the work of a splinter group, a rogue unit with the means to hunt down the men and women guilty of such horrific war crimes. It puts us in a difficult position.

“Could this be related to what happened in Eight?” I ask, staring at the surveillance footage.

Jackson nods. “Possibly. Though these two victims were doctors, technicians, not political advisors like Soyza. And we haven’t been able to link them together yet.”

Boggs hums. “This was an execution. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision, an accident. Was Macar tortured before he died?”

“We’re still waiting on an autopsy but initial reports suggest he wasn’t harmed in any way apart from the breaking of his neck. He was knocked out, tied up, and then killed. And Asbury was just shot in the head. No sign of a struggle.”

“Yet Soyza was a suicide. He was lying in his bed, not tied up or shot in the head.”

“All three instances are efficient, though,” Beetee points out. “Quick deaths, clean, apart from Asbury. But in Soyza’s case, there was no third party. He did it alone.”

“If Macar and Asbury had been killed before we found Soyza, I’d have found it easy to believe that he’d have found out and killed himself before whoever did this could get to him,” says Boggs. “So did Soyza know this would happen?”

“Soyza might not have known we were after him though this… this would be enough for a man to take his own life. It’s a shame we couldn’t get to him first. He might have gone quietly if he did; at least then he’d be safe from whoever killed the others.”

Jackson sighs. “Obviously, there are a lot of variables to consider. Until we get more surveillance footage, the autopsies… we can’t do much more than wait.”

“Do you have a mission for us, Commander?” asks Homes from the back of the room. “Are you sending us to Four?”

“No. We already have a covert squad mobilised there who will be able to keep things under control. I’m sending you to the Capitol. We’ve received intelligence that Macar frequently travelled from his safe house in District 2 into the Capitol, and did so again just a few months ago. We knew he was moving, but could never pinpoint where until now.”

A map of the Capitol projects onto the screen, pinpointing a location to the very north of the city, in the mountains. The base is small, not at all the fortress I’d expected, a warren seemingly without purpose or importance.

“We suspect the base is abandoned, but Macar thought it was important enough that he was willing to come out of hiding to get to it. We need to know what’s inside, why he went there, and hopefully it’ll help explain some of what’s going on.”

We leave an hour or so later, after we’ve all grabbed some breakfast and Jackson has mobilised a hovercraft to take us to the Capitol and come up with some kind of plan with Boggs.

I mull everything over as I get ready to go. The news of Macar and Asbury’s deaths doesn’t disturb me—little can after the events of recent years—but it is a surprise. Whoever killed them isn’t trying to be subtle, is making a statement. These killings are executions, with intent. But how were they found? Where they exposed, or is there another, secret network of splinter groups that we’re not aware of? I can only hope that this mission will give us all some answers.

Going to the Capitol, though, is something I dread doing. I told myself, after I shot Coin, that I’d never go back, but of course I’ve had to. It’s been a necessary evil through all of this. But now it’s just part of my mission. As much as I hate to be within its walls, surrounded by its people, at least I know that I’m not there completely against my will, to be paraded in front of baying crowds. I’m there with a purpose, with the aim of destroying everything and everyone that ever caused the people of Panem pain.

I can handle the Capitol when I keep that in mind.

The distance there from Five is a short one, especially with the airspace cleared so we can have a quick and easy journey. The squad consists of the regulars, minus Finnick, and plus Johanna.

“I have to go,” she says, eyes hard. She’s mad she never got to enact revenge on Macar herself, but this is the next best thing, I suppose. “I’ve been cleared for duty, haven’t I?”

Gale mutters under his breath but she ignores him, strapping herself into her armour.

“I want to see what the bastard was up to. And who knows? Maybe we’ll bump into our mysterious ally. I’d love to give him a piece of my mind.”

“He isn’t an ally,” says Gale, stalking past. Johanna isn’t fazed, pulling her helmet over her buzzed head. Finnick hugs her to his chest.

“Be careful,” he says, and she rolls her eyes.

“I always am,” she promises. “I’m with the greatest squad in Panem, remember? I’ll try and bring you back a souvenir.”

She sits next to me on the hovercraft, and despite all her bravado, her legs jiggles the entire way. When the pilot informs us we’ve entered Capitol airspace, she pats down her uniform.

“You alright?” I ask her, and she raises a brow.

“Are _you_?”

“It should be an easy mission,” I shrug, though I am feeling nervous. “It’s an empty base. Macar is dead. He’s not going to be there.”

A slash of early morning sunlight cuts across Jo’s face as the hovercraft glides through the air. “It’s not Macar I’m worried about,” she murmurs. “It’s what he’s left behind.”


	11. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for lots of murdering in this chapt

He studies the file belonging to the tall man on the way to District 4. Six names, six addresses, six codes assigned to each of them for when the tall man radioed in. He doesn’t recall all of the names, though he’s not surprised. It wasn’t something he was privy to when he was strapped onto a table or strung up in his cell. He learnt to recognise his captors mostly through the sound of their voice.

_Find them. You’ll know them when you see them._

He was messy, in Two, leaving the doctor and the tall man like that, letting the wife live. There’s something reckless and uncaring in him that weighs heavy in his chest. Even though he knows he should care about being careful, that other part almost wants to get caught.

As long as he keeps moving, keeps low, he will be fine. He’s good at hiding. He’s been doing it the past few months and so long as he doesn’t get stopped before he’s done what he needs to do, before he’s destroyed every single person who did this to him, he doesn’t care. They could come and put a bullet in his head, but as long as he’s finished with his own task when it happens, it would be a blessing. He wouldn’t run. He wouldn’t fight.

He smiles when he imagines it. Death, finally coming when he called.

* * *

 

It’s hot, in Four. The sky is endlessly blue, the ocean is bigger than he ever imagined. He likes the heat and the smell of salt in the air but this isn’t _home_. He stands in the sand and for a minute he feels like he’s been there before, and maybe he has, but he can’t be certain.

He sleeps for a few hours in an old apartment block at the edge of town, waking a little while after midday. No nightmares, which is a surprise. He expected them to return with vengeance after everything… he can still feel the doctor’s neck beneath his hands, feel the vertebrae twisting, and yet he feels oddly calm.

The apartment has a small kitchen but it’s empty. The house has been abandoned, the water and power shut off. A large shell sits on the centre of the table, pale pink with yellow insides. He picks it up and puts it to his ear, listening to the _wush wush_ of the waves. There’s a bathroom, too, with a dusty mirror above the sink. He wipes at the dust with his sleeve.

The light here is different than on the train. Natural, golden and soft. He leans in and stares the face down, and there it is again. His eyes. Not black. A deep, murky blue. Not the same eyes of the man he saw in the city, not the eyes of the man he’s grown half-accustomed to since he left.

Eyes shouldn’t do that. It makes him uneasy, seeing them change. He had assumed that out of everything in the grey shifting mass that was his life, his appearance would be somewhat stable. He might not be able to put a name to the face he sees but it is _his_. Why is it changing? _How_ is it changing? What else could they have done to him to make this happen?

He pulls at his face, as if he expects it to peel away and reveal the truth. But the mirror can’t lie. He tugs at his hair and sees that it’s lightening, too. No longer is it a pitch black, but is fading. At the roots, especially, he can see that it’s brown at the point where it emerges from his scalp. People in the city dyed their hair and skin and eyes and it usually faded if they didn’t maintain it. Is that what happened here?

As alarming as it is to see the colour seep from his irises like blood from a wound, it sparks something in his chest. Something warm, and bright. _Reclaim yourself_ , says the voice. _Destroy them and reclaim yourself._

* * *

 

The unplanned nature of finding the doctor and the tall man in District 2 prompts him to be careful this time, to observe his next objectives, to plan. He doesn’t want them to be ready for him, but he wants to be ready for them. The tall man could’ve shot him. It was a lucky escape.

And the tall man was right. Six people to find. Four women, two men. All under the sun and blue skies of District 4.

He’s fully aware that there are more, somewhere, but unless he stumbles across one in the street again, he knows he’s going to have to look for them. He’s going to have to get information from the others and build a map, make a plan of where to go, of who to find.

He takes to following them. He follows them to the market, as they talk to neighbours, as they relax on the beach. Two of the women work at a fishery. One of the men at a small medical centre, caring for the civilians.

He learns their patterns, their movements, figures out when they’re likely to be alone. The monster paces back and forth, restless with its next meal so close by, but he forces it to wait. For once, he is the predator, and they are the prey.

He knows the doctors and the orderlies and the scientists got a kick out of what they did to him and the other prisoners, but he was tied down most of the time or drugged to hell so it was never really a fair fight.

_So_ , says the voice, _they deserve what’s coming to them._

He is what they created. They wanted him to destroy. And destroy he will.

As the days drag by, though, the nightmares return, rich and heavy like silk, holding him down. He tries to stay awake, to outlive them, but exhaustion always takes over, and he almost prefers a few fitful hours of rest when he starts hallucinating, when the crackling buzz builds and builds, pouring in like sand out of his ears.

His first targets are the two women working at the fishery. They were nurses, in the Capitol. He can’t remember them actively doing things to him, but they were there, watching, taking notes. Complicit.

The gulls call to one another as he pulls his cap low over his head and watches them walk in together. They arrive early each morning when the place is deserted to make coffee in the breakroom. There’s twenty-five minutes between when they enter through the west-facing entrance and when their boss arrives. It’s a small window, but it’s enough.

The fishery is a large, rusting warehouse. The ground floor is concrete and filled with machinery, and there are metal walkways forming a web above his head, with a breakroom in the centre, a small, boxy room with windows. The doors are closed but the lights are on, a faint yellow glow through the murky glass.

He goes to the main generator and flips the lever. The lights stutter, and fail. He vaults up the metal staircase, walks along the bridge, and has just reached the door to the breakroom when it swings open.

“… switch the generator on,” one of the women, a pale redhead, is saying. She’s not looking where she’s going so he can knock her out with ease, letting her slump against a set of filing cabinets.

The second woman, dark-skinned, hair cropped shot, sits frozen in place, a spoon in hand, cheerful music playing on the radio. She stares, and then seems to recognise him.

“Hello,” he says, easing the door shut behind him.

She breathes hard, standing, now, on the other side of the table. She holds the spoon like the guards did batons. “You—you—”

He waits.

“How did you find me, us?” she asks, shaking.

“Where are the others?” he replies. “I want to know where the others are.”

To give her credit, she doesn’t break, doesn’t give him a list and a handy map. She drops the spoon and grabs a chair and then picks the spoon again and when he approaches she throws the spoon and then the chair and starts to yell which he doesn’t want. He twists her neck in a quick, clean motion to make her quiet.

The other woman has managed to crawl to the door in that time, wrenching it open and fleeing along the slippery walkway. She shrieks and he follows her, recoiling at the sound because it makes the buzzing reach a pitch that makes his vision go spotty, but he doesn’t have to worry for much longer because she loses her footing on the stairs and careens over the side.

Her body makes dull thudding noise when it hits the concrete below, her head clangs against a piece of machinery. He jumps down and sees the blood coming out of her mouth and the way her head is caved in a little at the back.

He takes three knives from the fishery, and is gone a full seven minutes before the captain pulls up in his truck.

He rests in the apartment until nightfall, making a small meal from some food picked up from the market, and then heads out again. By the next day, he has two people left to dispose of. The other two put up a fight, and he has a bruised face and possibly a fractured rib because of it, but he’s able to ignore the pain, now, a truly ironic side effect of what they did to him. The third woman didn’t give him answers. The first man spat in his face.

“We’re everywhere, and you’ll never find us, you filthy fuckin’ _mutt_ ,” he said in his unmistakable Capitol accent.

“Well, I found you,” he said, driving the knife deep into the man’s chest and letting him drop back into the bathtub. It was messy, so he closed the windows and the doors to mask the smell and buy him some more time.

* * *

 

He draws a lot in between finding people. As the nightmares wash over him, so do odd flashes of memory. Most are tinged red and stink of blood and fear; he remembers watching a blond boy snapping the next of a smaller, dark-haired boy, in a field. He remembers blood falling from the sky. He remembers a woman saying _tick tock tick tock._

He draws a lot of faces. It’s astounding to watch them flow out of his pencil and onto the page. He draws and he draws and he draws, faces and profiles and sometimes hands, sprawled across the paper like spiders. These people must have been important to him before, but he can’t quite identify them. There’s just a sense of déjà vu, of nostalgia to accompany the sketches. A man with wavy hair and green eyes and a wide gleaming smile. A man who looks like him but older, rounder at the waist, and with grey hair, who might be his father, and looks kind so he hopes so.

He draws a girl over and over. The same face, whether it’s frowning or shouting or smiling. She’s very beautiful, whoever she is, with long dark hair and pale eyes.

Whoever she is, whoever they are, he hopes they’re out there, somewhere. He hopes that they’d be happy to see him, even after everything he’s doing, after everything that happened in the city. He knows he’d be happy to see them.

* * *

 

The last woman surprises him.

He breaks into her house and when she gets over her initial shock she gets angry and almost _disgusted_ at the sight of him. She fights hard and scrappy but eventually he gets her pinned against the wall, one arm pressed against her throat.

“You’re a goddamn mutt,” she rasps. “An experiment gone wrong. I’ll never give you any answers and you’ll die before you get any.”

Her lips twist and there’s a crunching sound. He lessens his hold on her, but it’s not his fault. He’s confused when she starts to choke, eyes bulging.

“Long live Panem,” she inhales, the sound ragged and rattling, and then she’s still, a deadweight. He steps back. She slumps to the floor. Blood oozes, thick and dark, from her mouth, nose, and ears.

* * *

 

The last man does something even more unexpected. When he breaks into his house, he’s sat at his kitchen table, apparently waiting for him. He pulls a gun but doesn’t fire in his direction, his spotted hand shaking. He’s old, older than the others have been, a scientist, he thinks.

“I know you’ve been after the others,” he says, resigned. “I didn’t… I didn’t think you’d survived all this time. I’m sorry.”

“Do you have any information?” he asks, uninterested in apologies.

The man nods. “Yes. I have—there’s a book,” he stands. “By the cabinet. Loose tile. Can I get it?”

He nods. The man leaves the gun on the table and goes to the tiled wall, pulling one free and removing a small black notebook, wedged into the small space. He hands it to him but he doesn’t take it. The man sets it on the counter.

“What’s in it?”

“Records.”

“What kind of records?”

The scientists sits back down. “Lists of names. People involved in the projects. A lot of them are dead, now, or the rebels have got them. But they’re all in there.”

He frowns. This is highly unusual. Why would the man do this? It has to be a trap.

“Why?” he says, voice rough. The man understands what he’s trying to say and clears his throat before speaking.

“What we did… it was wrong. We never should’ve done those things to you, to anyone. The projects got out of hand. You didn’t deserve—what happened to you and, and I’m sorry.” The scientists swallows hard. His voice breaks. “I’m sorry.”

He stands there, watching the older man. The apology is useless now, but the remorse is a first. The scientist looks upset, but isn’t screaming, isn’t trying to fight him. He just sits there, staring like he’s seeing a ghost, as if his nightmares have crawled out of the darkness and come for him.

That’s exactly what has happened.

“I’m sorry,” the scientists says. “I never—I didn’t realise, at first, but then I did, and I should have… I was in the genetics lab and I—”

He holds up his hand. The man falls silent. A perverse thrill runs through him at the man’s obedience.

He’s well aware that some people are more guilty than the others, that some wanted to stop but couldn’t. Some, when they realised, try to stop it. They often ended up on the operating tables themselves, so most stayed quiet.

_“Christ, the smell,” says a voice as the door swings open, spilling light in from the corridor. He watches from the floor, squinting, his entire body aching. The guards messed up. They went too far. And now they’re trying to get someone else to fix it._

_“What—what is this? What did you do to him?” asks the voice._

_“Fix it, doctor. This is your work. You fix it.”_

He will not feel sorry for this man. Because he was still there, he still worked for them, still fixed him up and made him ready for the next treatment. The merciful thing to do – the right thing to do – would’ve been to put him out of his misery. There were many chances to do so, to shock him with the baton turned too high, to let him drown. But he didn’t. None of them did.

“You’re here to kill me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay,” says the scientist. He pushes the gun further over the table. For a minute, he considers picking it up, but he just stares at the man instead, making eye contact.

“This is your work,” he says lowly. The scientist’s eyes widen. “You fix it.”

He takes the notebook from the counter and flips through it. Names, locations, even photos. A veritable treasure trove. He looks back up at the man, who watches him.

He’s just stepped out into the street when a gunshot rings out, sharp into the night.

* * *

 

Back at the apartment, he reads the file over and over. He marks the ones he recognises. The organisation of it all makes the monster calm, makes the buzzing fade enough that he can sleep.

* * *

 

He wakes the next morning because there’s someone else in the apartment. He only has enough time to sit up from the couch when a man in a hardhat and a fluorescent jacket comes walking in, holding a clipboard and a pen.

“This is—this building is condemned, man! What the hell are you doing?”

He scrambles, grabbing his backpack. He sleeps in his shoes so it doesn’t take him any more than ten seconds to shove the man aside and take the stairs two at a time. There’s another worker who calls after him as he barrels past.

“How’d you get in here? You can’t be squatting in condemned buildings, pal – hey, where are you going? You’re not in trouble! Sam, Sam! What’s going on?”

He sprints out of the building, ducking under demolition tape that wasn’t there when he got back from the scientist’s house, and races down the street. His heart pounds and he feels panic rising like a wave but he manages to stave it all off until he’s in a quiet side-street, bracing his hands on his knees and gasping for breath.

_Calm down,_ says the voice. _You’re fine. They weren’t coming after you. They didn’t know you’d be there. They’re not looking for you._

Logically, yes, he knows this, but the proximity of the strangers was too much. And he didn’t wake up until the man was in the same room as him. He was vulnerable. He was stupid.

“Hey, mister, are you alright?” comes a young voice, and he jerks upright, heart ricocheting into high-gear once again. It’s a little kid, looking at him from a window.

He breathes hard, looking up the alley. There’s no one running after him. “Yeah.”

The kid shrugs, leaning over the window ledge. 

“Which way to the ocean?” he asks.

“That way,” the boy points. “The beach is over there.”

“Wade?” comes a voice from behind the boy, inside the house. “Wade, who are you talking to?”

The boy pulls a face. “Bye, mister,” he says, ducking out of sight. He hears Wade and who he assumes is his mother shouting to each other, and then walks away, heading for the coast.

The beach is too busy, with people lounging on the sand, the water frothy with swimmers, the promenade crawling with soldiers, so he takes off towards the cliff. It’s windy at the top but quiet. He sits in the grass and breathes in the air.

When the sun begins to sink, he walks further from the beach, down the cliff, into a quiet, smaller bay, dotted with houses. He feels a little safer, especially now it’s dark. He drops his backpack in the soft yellow sand and kicks off his shoes and pants, jacket and shirt, to run into the waves. He feels dirty and too hot and the water has been calling him. He swims out until he can’t touch the bottom and then floats on his back, letting the water support him. It’s warm and soft and doesn’t hurt, isn’t being blasted cold and unforgiving from a hose.

He floats, he stares at the rapidly darkening sky, and then feels something. Or he thinks he does, brushing against his spine. Something in the back of his head starts and whimper, starts to freak out, and he remembers the water whirling so fast, too fast, and remembers holding on tight. Remembers the water surging up unnaturally high, unnaturally fast. Remembers muggy, hot air, and silky green vegetation that had eyes.

He chokes, swallowing a mouthful of water, and goes back to land, stumbling out of the waves. He lies on his back and breathes. The sky goes gold and pink and then an orange that looks beautiful. He remembers where he is. He remembers that they’re not here, that there’s nothing in the water.

He hurridly redresses once he’s dry enough. The water goes _wush wush_ like the shell.

Somewhere along the bay, carried on the wind, is a woman’s high-pitched laughter. He pulls his shirt over his ears and looks, along the sand. There are houses up on the gentle cliffs, glowing butter-yellow, and he looks past them, squinting into the gloom. Two figures, walking arm-in-arm. They must live nearby and are taking an evening stroll.

He shoves his feet into his boots. Time to go.

He looks at the two people. They’ve stopped. For a minute he thinks they’re looking out at sea but then realises they’re looking at _him_.

He backs away. _It could be nothing_. Yes, it could be nothing. But he thinks of the four women, the two men. The two construction workers. Of young Wade, in the window. He turns and flees over the sand, back to the cliff, away from the bay and the two people who were looking at him, a stranger on their darkened beach.


	12. Katniss

The jet arrives at a secure landing platform. A senior officer welcomes us to the Capitol and guides us to an awaiting truck. Three soldiers are already sat inside. They greet us with smiles and salutes. The vehicle is the same kind that used to cart peacekeepers around, huge, heavily armoured, sagging under the weight of metal plates. I look out through the tiny slit windows as the truck passes through the city. The buildings, even the decaying, bombed ones, are still magnificent.

For a moment I remember the Victory Tour, and Peeta by my side as we were taken from the station to the stage in District 11. I look as if I expect to see him there in whatever Cinna and Portia dressed him in, but it’s just Johanna, decked out in Kevlar, her eyes closed and her head resting against the wall of the truck.

Boggs drills the mission into us, ensuring we’re all ready to work as a team when we get to the base.

“We’ll make the climb to the base on foot. The truck can’t make that incline. Davinson, Koshi, and Burnham—” He gestures to the non-squad soldiers, “— will keep watch outside the base. Jackson thinks it’s an old defence base, abandoned, so there shouldn’t be anyone there to greet us, but watch your six, alright?” He looks around the group. “Don’t get hurt, don’t trip any wires, and for the love of Panem, don’t get lost.”

“This isn’t a school trip,” Johanna says, eyes still closed. I see Koshi grinning at her from where he sits further down the truck.

The air is fresh and crisp when we arrive. I jump out, gravel crunching underfoot. If it weren’t for the skyscrapers in the distance, you could almost forget we were in the Capitol. It’s quiet here, the only sign of human activity being the road cutting through the sparse woodland.

“Just like home,” Gale says as we set off.

“I think we’d have caught a lot more deer if we were armed like this,” I reply, and he laughs.

The walk is a hard one on occasionally unstable rock, but I enjoy the trek. We reach the base after thirty minutes. It’s nothing more than a heavy door set into the rock face, a faded Capitol emblem in the centre.

Davinson, Koshi, and Burnham walk wait outside, and we enter the compound. What greets us is darkness and silence. The place is cold, gloomy, clearly abandoned. The air is old and still.

“What a dump,” says Gale, scuffing his boot against the floor.

“Thank you, soldier,” Boggs says as the dust billows into the air.

There’s a map of the facility on the wall. It’s square in shape, all on one floor, consisting of a single square corridor with smaller rooms jutting out to the sides, and a larger open space in the very centre. Some of the rooms are labelled, others are scratched out or have been left blank.

“Clear all the rooms, and we’ll meet in the middle,” Boggs instructs, running his gloved finger over the surface of the map. We split into groups, one going left, the other going right.

Jackson appears to have been correct in her assumption that it was a defence base of some kind, perhaps an early threat detection centre. But it’s old, disused, left this way for a long while. The corridors are empty and water leaks in at several points, rusting the metal, staining the walls, pooling in some of the rooms. Apart from the buzzing of our comms and the echo of our footsteps, the only sound is dripping water.

“This is way more damage than can be done in just a few years,” says Homes, as we stand at the doorway of a flooded room. He swings his torch through the darkened space. Monitors line the far wall, and a few desk chairs float. “They abandoned this long before the war.”

“Did they decommission the site?” Leeg 1 asks. “That seems unlikely. They knew there were still threats out there.”

“Perhaps they built a new one,” Homes shrugs.

We check every room and find each one empty. Some hold monitors, some are locker rooms, others are storage. Cameras are everywhere, and while we’ve been assured they’re dead, it’s still unsettling to have them watching us, black eyes dark and gaping.

We come across a whiteboard in a locker room. Leeg 1 swipes her finger over the date scrawled there and it comes away easily.

“No one has been here in decades,” she whispers.

Homes reports back to Boggs. “South and west corridors clear.” Boggs confirms that they’ve found nothing either, and we walk until we meet each other.

“Nothing but bathrooms and flooded offices,” says Gale. “I’m disappointed.”

“Hoping for torture chambers?” Jo asks.

“I’ve seen enough of those,” he tells her, and she laughs. “And the Capitol wouldn’t bring prisoners all the way out here.”

“I get it,” she drawls. “You wanted to fight some bad guys.”

Gale starts to respond, but Boggs tells the two of them to grow up, and he just glares at Jo instead.

Next is the main room at the centre of the base. A set of unassuming double doors lead into it, and above them is a brass plaque reading VAULT _._ After picking the lock, Leeg 2 tosses in a scanner, sliding it across the floor and into the gloom. It beeps twice, flashes once, and then sends out a beam of light, sweeping back and forth quicker than I can blink. Leeg 2 looks at her comm. “No signs of life.”

She and her sister head into the room first. I watch with the others from the doorway as they walk away, the torches on their guns illuminating walls and pillars and desks. They can’t be more than thirty feet away when there’s a dull droning sound and a distant, if not short-lived, clattering.

“What is it?” shouts Boggs, but he gets his answer soon enough when rows of lights in the ceiling flicker on row by row, whining like mosquitos, revealing a huge room filled with monitors, desks, pillars, chairs, and beams crisscrossing to support the weight of the mountain above. Large metal boxes, double my height and about as wide as my shoulders, line the far end of the room, almost like a library.

“Shelves?” I ask.

“No,” says Boggs. “Units. Relatively low-tech compared to other stuff but they’re hardy things, kept on a closed system to protect against cyberattacks. Old base, old tech.”

“This isn’t a defence facility,” I say, a sudden lightbulb moment. “This is a storage site. Of course they’d want to protect their data here. They kept other stuff in the dam, so why not in a mountain?”

“And no flooding in here,” Gale notes. “This place is pristine.”

He’s right. The air is cold and stale and a thin layer of dust coats everything, but it’s a sign of time passing rather than evidence of neglect. The lights all work, and the clattering we heard was an air filtration system. We walk deeper into the space. It’s cluttered, but fairly tidy. Everything here had a purpose. The chairs are neat under the desks, the monitors are all dormant. If it wasn’t for the dust, you could assume that all the staff were just home for the weekend.

I walk alongside Jo, past empty lines of hooks on the wall, past notices reminding staff to ‘please keep your cell phones _OFF_ ’. It’s strange, to think that people worked in a place like this. I’d half-assumed every Capitol citizen to own exuberant boutiques, if they had to work at all. This place is more like Thirteen than to the glossy lacquer of the city.

There’s a raised platform in the centre of the room, with concrete steps on each side and metal railing all around, and a large quad of screens with a control panel underneath. I climb the steps and spin slowly when I’m at the top. I can see everything from here, the Leegs walking through the rows of data banks, Boggs and Homes frowning as they walk towards us.

“Why would Macar want to come to this place?” I ask, frowning.

“He was here,” Johanna says, pointing to where the dust has been disturbed, a smear against the smooth surface of the control panel. Gale swipes his hand over the surface, and to all of our surprise, the screens flutter under his touch, glowing green and blue as they boot up.

“Huh,” says Gale.

I watch from a few feet back. Boggs and Homes are equally as wary, hesitating on the steps.

“Should they be operational?” I ask, feeling my pulse quicken.

We watch in silence as Gale works. After thirty seconds, some of the data banks closest to us begin to whirr, and atop each one, a green light flashes.

“You’re bringing the whole system online?” Boggs asks Gale.

“Not intentionally,” he says, still tapping away, gun slung carelessly over his back. I grip mine, a horrible feeling washing over me, not dissimilar to the one I had in District 8 before we found Anthonis Soyza dead.

“What if it’s rigged to blow?” asks Leeg 1. It’s what we’re all thinking. Loyalist and splinter cells have killed and injured countless civilians and personnel in the same way; bombs snuck into supplies, viruses lodged into rebel defence systems.

Gale shakes his head. “No, this is different. If they wanted us dead they’d have killed us already.” He eyes the screens. “This is… this is intentional. If this is Macar’s doing, he wanted us to find it.”

Numbers and letters begin to scroll over the screens.

“Hawthorne, what the hell are you trying to do?” Boggs demands.

“I’m not _trying_ to do anything,” he replies, lifting his hands. “It’s… this is just data. _A lot_ of data.”

“And highly encrypted,” Boggs says. “This is for Beetee to handle, not us. We can’t loiter.”

He turns with Homes to descend away from the platform, but Jo and I stay by Gale, watching. “Do you think Beetee will be able to access it?” I ask him.

“I’d imagine so,” he replies, amusement lacing his words. “The man likely designed the system.” He pulls a device from his belt and attaches it to the monitor to begin transferring files. Boggs yells for us to hurry up.

“Come on, Gale,” I say, antsy.

“Wait,” he says, frowning. I look up at the huge display at the lines of code spiralling past. “No password. No encryption.” He shakes his head. “What is this?”

The screens go blank all of a sudden, and then two words appear in the centre of each one.

_PROJECT: NOX_.

“Oh _shit_ ,” says Jo, and I glance at her. She’s usually unshakeable, but now she’s pale, face tight with fear.

“What’s Project Nox?” I ask her.

“Guys, what’s the hold up?” Homes asks from the bottom of the steps.

“Johanna!”

“I—I don’t know! I don’t know what it is. I only heard them mention it a few times, I—I—” Boggs comes over, and climbs the steps with Homes. We all watch the screens. “Macar spoke about it sometimes. They were all excited. I was rescued before then but—but Peeta must—”

She stops abruptly, eyes widening. On screen, the two words disappear and are replaced with CCTV footage.

“I can’t—” she says, voice thick in her throat. She hurries down the steps. Leeg2 follows her and they vanish from sight.

The footage is from a fairly high angle, from a camera high on a wall. A room, well-lit, with a huge chair in the centre hooked up to monitors and a tangled nest of wires and cables at the top. Two surgical tables sit to the right, one clear, one holding various items that I can’t quite make out. A handful of men and women in lab coats mill around, and several heavily armed guards stand by.

“Project Nox,” one of the doctor’s voices crackles through the speakers. “Test subject PM12.” He flips lazily through a chart. “Treatment number… thirty-eight.”

“Macar,” says Gale.

“Previous trials of venoms A through F have not yielded desired results. Subject continues to fight treatment despite efforts by Doctors Decima and Polmo to condition subject. This is venom trial G. Electroneurological stimulation with an increased dosage of four-hundred. CNS 428. BZD also administered for staff safety.”

There’s a sound somewhere off-screen. None of the guards move, but the doctors, including Macar, all look towards the noise. From the bottom of the screen come two guards, and between them, a man with a shaved head, in a medical gown, being dragged along. A third guard follows, gun pointed at the man.

I push closer to the screen.

The man begins to struggle as he’s hauled closer to the chair, his movements slow and ragged, and then his head tips back, towards the direction of the camera.

“Peeta,” I breathe, horror lancing through me.

He doesn’t seem lucid, but he’s not entirely unconscious, either. Even in the fuzzy footage I can see his slack jaw, wide-open eyes, the way he tries to dig his heels in but fails to slow the progress of the guards. He’s dropped into the chair, strapped down, and the chair tilts back. One of the doctors messes with the machine and a ring of metal atop the chair comes alive, spinning, whirring.

A crackling sound fills the air. It sounds just like the fence did, the few times it was turned on. _Electricity._

“Stop the footage,” says Homes, but I’m transfixed, watching the halo, watching Peeta. He still tries to fight, even while restrained.

There’s a quiet sound. Peeta, moaning, low and pitiful, like an animal that knows it’s cornered.

“Please,” he slurs. The doctors standing around are unaffected.

“Commence therapy,” Macar orders, and the halo descends. For a moment, all there is to see is Peeta’s body going rigid, and the faint flashes of the electrical current surging.

And then come the screams.

They’re nothing like I’ve ever heard before, and I’ve heard plenty of screams before in my life. It’s nothing compared to this. And perhaps it’s because it’s Peeta, but the noise, the horror of it all, it makes me sick.

“Shut it off! Now!” Boggs orders, and Gale stops the footage. I feel all of them looking at me, watching, waiting.

I stumble down the steps, convinced I’m going to pass out, but I just run and run and my legs carry me, away from the others. Homes calls after me, Boggs shouts at Gale, and I just run, legs wobbling, skin clammy. I run until I burst out through the main doors of the facility, feeling the world tilting back and forth. Peeta’s screams chase me into the open air.

Burnham and Davinson jump ten feet when I appear, and Koshi, stood by Leeg 1 and Jo a little further away, looks over in concern.

“Sergeant?” asks Burnham. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I gasp out. “Nothing.”

I stumble forward, and then drop to my knees. I throw up everything I’ve eaten today, purging it from my body as if the act will clear my mind of what I’ve just seen and heard. Afterwards, I stand and wipe my mouth. Jo looks at me. She knew what was coming. She knew what that footage held.

The rest of the squad appear. Boggs is speaking into his comm, declaring this a _level nine situation_ , and orders Burnham and Davinson to shut the base doors and make sure it’s secure. They do so, and then we trek back down the mountain. I know everyone is watching me, waiting for the moment when I trip and fall onto my own gun, or simply throw myself headfirst into the ravine.

But I don’t, and we walk and we walk and the others murmur. Gale explains what happened, his voice flat.

“Peeta was never there. None of them were. Macar left the video on purpose.”

On the truck, I sit quietly, wedged in between Jo and the wall. On the jet, I sit alone, watching the sunlight shift across the interior of the hovercraft. I don’t want to look at the others, don’t want to talk to them. I know what I’ll see there, because it’s the exact same expression on my face, the one I had when I found out Peeta hadn’t been rescued, when Prim died in the Capitol.

Back in Command-Five, we’re all required to attend debriefing. Boggs keeps his report short, eyeing me the entire time. Jackson doesn’t look queasy, or shocked, but she does look unsettled.

At the end, once the others have been dismissed, I make a request.

“Another notice. Public, this time, to look out for Peeta and the people Macar worked with. Anyone, I don’t care. I just want people to be aware.”

“That footage isn’t proof, Everdeen,” Jackson says. “It could be years old.”

I nod, twisting my sleeve around my fingers. “I know. But I want a public notice. That’s all I’m asking for.”

She sighs. “I’ll confirm with the President and have it sent out by tonight. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have people on the lookout for any Capitol allies roaming the streets.”

“Thank you,” I say, standing. She purses her lips.

“Go and see the doctor,” she tells me.

I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

“That’s an order, sergeant.”

I nod, and duck out of the room. Gale and Jo are waiting outside Command and Gale tries bombarding me with questions the second the doors open and Jo tells him to piss off. I hear them squabbling all the way down the corridor, their voices only stopping when I duck into a bathroom and lock the door tightly behind me.

I sit on the closed toilet seat and press my fingers against my eyes.

So, Macar went all that way just to leave behind the video. He knew we’d find the base, knew we’d try to access the data. So he left behind a gift, a little reminder of what he did, what we couldn’t stop. He knew what would incapacitate me the most, and it’s worked. I feel as if a knife has been plunged into my chest, and has been slowly twisting, scraping against my ribs the entire way back to five.

Jo and Annie have never said much about their time in the Capitol, but I know there was torture, experiments, that they didn’t discriminate against who was imprisoned, be it Victor, civilian, or whoever Snow felt had wronged him. Jo had described the conditions of the training centre and what they did to her in the short time she was there, and we know what the place looked like from the footage gathered during the rescue operation. The centre had been transformed into a labyrinth of cells, operating rooms, and more. It was an arena all of its own.

But Peeta was gone. When the rescue squad arrived, he was one of a handful to not be where we expected. And in the files we’ve collected since there, he’s always been absent. Traces have appeared; names blanked out, codes like PM12 scattered here and there. He’s been erased in a lot of places, made into a ghost story, impossible to pin down.

Three years since he was taken from the arena. Three years of dead ends, of having him just out of reach, and now this. Evidence, in its clearest form.

Macar is taunting me. Snow has the upper hand, even from beyond the grave.

I splash water on my face, bracing myself against the basin and fighting to control my breathing. I have to be calm. If I’m not, Jackson will have me kicked off the squad and I’ll be excluded from not only my own objective of finding Peeta, other prisoners, and the people who tortured them, but from squad missions as a whole.

To appease Jackson, I go and see the onsite therapist. She’s a kindly woman who’s managed to find the line between being caring and sensitive and being smart enough not to give in to anyone’s shit. I like her, I do, and she’s helped a lot, but there’s a time for me to fully process today, and that time is not now.

“Command Boggs briefly explained what happened,” she says, handing me a cup of tea. I wrap my fingers around it, feeling the warmth leaching into my fingers.

“Yeah,” I say. She nods.

“You want to walk me through it?”

“We got to the base. A video had been left. It was of Peeta. In the Capitol. Being tortured.”

“And how did you react?”

“I ran. I feel the exact same way I did when the rescue op failed. When Prim died.” I look down at my lap. My voice breaks on the last part. I look up at the therapist. “I know you said that I should get my feelings out in the open, that I should talk about it… but right now, I think I need to keep it all in, doc. Attempting to make me talk is not going to turn out good.”

“Is that how you feel? That people are forcing you to talk?”

“Commander Jackson ordered me here,” I say. “I’m timetabled hours to see you. It’s not exactly a matter of choice.”

She nods, scribbling something down in the notebook forever balanced on her knee.

“Are you going to clear me?” I ask her.

“I don’t need to,” she says. “I wasn’t asked to decide if you were clear for active duty. She just wanted us to talk.”

I blink. Oh.

“Finish your tea,” she says. “Take the day off. Process it all, and come to me whenever you want, alright?”

“Alright,” I say quietly. My comm beeps and I look down. It’s a message from Gale.

            _Beetee has the files. Promises a status update within 48 hrs._

I sip my tea. The therapist hands me a biscuit, and asks me about Haymitch and Effie in District 4 until the tea is gone and the biscuit is nothing more than crumbs.

Under her orders, I decide to spend the rest of the day processing. I go back to my apartment, ignore everyone and everything, and strip out of my uniform, tossing the comm aside. I step into the shower, turning the dial until the water is scalding. I stand there for too long, feeling a biting chill settling into my bones.

That video was just a fraction of what Peeta went through. The horrors that will be uncovered over the next few days by Beetee and his team will probably make the footage pale in comparison. These things… torture, imprisonment, they’re part of the war. They’re what people do to each other when they’re scared or when they’re too powerful or when they don’t know how else to tip the odds in their favour. The rebellion has made clear in my mind how brutal human beings can be to one another, but I’ve always been able to hold it at an arm’s length. It was usually documents, witness reports, and rumours. I’ve been lucky in that I haven’t been there when most of the atrocities of the war occurred.

This footage… it was the exact same thing, and yet it wasn’t. I was detached, but I was present. It’s a whole new playing field. At least I saw Prim die. At least.

For the remainder of the day and late into the night I curl up in my bed, not sleeping, just replaying the sound of the electricity, of Macar’s monotonous drawl, of Peeta screaming.

By nightfall, I’m starving. I brave the mess hall, bundling myself up in a thick sweater and shuffling out of my apartment. The mess hall is almost empty when arrive but for Johanna, Finnick, and Gale, sitting around a low table playing cards. Gale looks up when I enter, eyes following me as I move to pour myself a glass of water.

“Hawthorne!” Jo snaps. “Your move!”

Gale plucks a card from the pile and lays it down. Finnick does the same. Jo curses, sitting back in her seat, cards held close to her chest so no one can see them. Finn stands and walks towards me, pulling a covered dish out of the refrigerator.

“Lamb stew,” he says. “I asked cook to save you some.”

“Thanks, Finn,” I say. He pats me on the shoulder and returns to the card game. I reheat the stew and grab a fork, and then go and sit beside him.

“No crying, then?” Jo asks as I dig into my food.

“I’m fine,” I tell her. “And you’re losing.”

We sit quietly, or at least, I do. I watch them play, ignore Gale’s questioning gaze, and have just finished my last mouthful when Gale lays down his last card, winning by a mile. Jo sulks, Finn laughs, saying _you shouldn’t cheat, Jo_ in his soft District 4 accent, leaning forward to reshuffle the deck.

“Beetee says the encryption is fairly simple,” Gale says. I nod. He pushes on. “The files won’t take long for us to access but I don’t see what the point is. How will they help locate cells? How will they help locate people? They won’t.”

“Why are you so sure?” I counter. “You said so yourself; Macar left the footage on purpose. If he didn’t want us to see the other files, he would’ve destroyed them.”

Gale narrows his eyes. “I don’t think you should read the files.”

“Why not?”

“Catnip…” he says, and I scowl. “You really want to put yourself through that? Who knows what else is in those documents and—”

“I’m not going to get upset,” I tell him. “I’m not going to breakdown, Gale.”

“What good will it do?”

“If you dislike the files so much, tell Beetee to destroy them,” I deadpan. “You don’t have to read them, you know. But I want to. Even if it doesn’t help, at least I’ll know what happened to him after you fucked up the rescue op.”

It’s a low blow, and I know it. Because Gale didn’t fuck it up, no one did, but he’s felt guilty ever since. It was just what happened. No one could have helped it. He just wasn’t there.

The anger I initially felt towards him because of it has dissipated over time, but sometimes, like now, it rears its ugly head.

Finnick is passing out cards. Jo is watching Gale, eyebrows halfway to her hairline. Gale’s jaw tightens as he stares at me but I refuse to apologise. My comm beeps. It’s a message from Jackson.

_Notice dispatched_.

There’s a small file attached. I open it. It’s a list of six names and accompanying photos. Five are ex-Capitol military figures, scientists, and politicians that we’ve been looking for since the end of the war. And at the bottom, is Peeta.

_Mellark, Peeta. POW. Missing 1198 days._

His photo is his official Games portrait, from the Quarter Quell. A sense of déjà vu runs through me, seeing him reduced to stats like that, but the notice gives me hope, and right now, I’m going to cling to it with everything I have.


	13. Peeta

He needs to leave District 4, but the station is busy and there are more soldiers there than he expected. For some reason they’re being extra-vigilant, combing through the luggage of every passenger, checking and double-checking boarding passes. He doesn’t the latter, and the contents of his rucksack would have him locked up quicker than he could blink.

He can’t linger, though, not with six people dead by his hand—the monster purrs contently at the fact—and not after the construction workers and young Wade and those two people on the beach. He has to go, or people will begin to notice, will realise what he’s done.

He has a task to complete, and thanks to the last man, a list to work through. Only then will he rest. Only then will he allow whoever wants to punish him for his crimes take him in. But first he has to cleanse Panem, scour it empty like they did to him.

Judge, jury, and executioner. Why can’t he be all three?

* * *

 

With the train station no longer viable, he has to get out of the district by sneaking across the border. He walks through the night, away from the town, away from the buildings, into scrubland, until he reaches a chain-link fence running parallel to the railway, cutting through the desert. A sign reads LIVE-DANGER! and has a little picture of a stick man getting electrocuted but the fence is silent so he can just crawl straight under where the metal has curled up at the bottom.

He stands outside district lines, and a thrill rolls through him. He realises that the low-seated fear he feels is from _before_ , when he was just a normal guy who knew the punishment for going outside the fence. But things are different, now. No one will shoot him for trespassing onto Capitol land.

He listens to the wind and watches pale wisps of cloud drift over the wide, white disc of the moon. He listens to the static of the tracks, and sees how they snake off into the distance, gleaming. He follows the tracks. The desert is wide and the sun will be hot when it rises and he can’t trust that if he strays he won’t get lost and die. So he walks, and walks, seeing no movement but for the occasional bush waving in the breeze or the glowing eyes of some small nocturnal animal.

The emptiness of the land gives him time to think, the space to think. _I’m good at this_ , he realises. He’s good at what he’s doing, even if there’s a part of him, the part from _before_ which is horrified by the violence, by the blood staining his hands. But that part also admits that it is no stranger to violence, and that he is no stranger to killing, even if his motives this time around are different.

He shouldn’t feel guilty. He doesn’t. All these people, they knew what they were doing. They knew what they were doing to fellow human beings, and for what? For science? For the war? Maybe at first, but it quickly became something other. And none of them stopped it. So this is what they deserve. It’s what he deserves. It’s what Panem deserves.

The last thing these doctors and scientists and guards and nurses should feel is terror, even if it’s just a fraction of what they put him through.

The first doctor was right. They took out what they wanted, stripped him down to bare bones, and then built out of what remained. But they couldn’t take everything. He’s still in there, somewhere, in some form. Warped and torn and thin, but there. And he’s not going to give that small part up.

_A merciless killer? That’s all you are?_

Yes. Yes, that’s what he is. He is a side effect of _their_ games, and he will do what’s right, in stopping them from ever doing such a thing again. He wants to protect the people trying to rebuild a life after the war tore it down, even if it’s at the expense of his own life.

* * *

 

After a few hours of walking, he spots a structure, set back a little from the tracks. He approaches carefully but there are no light, no noises, no signs of life. It’s a small building. An old, old house, made of wood and all falling down, a relic from a long time ago.

He leans his weight against the door and pushes until it creaks and pops open. Inside are four rooms, all on one floor. The roof sags. Sand has gotten in through the windows, piling up in drifts inside the property. The land is trying to swallow it whole. There’s no power, no water. A table and an upturned chair are in what must have been the kitchen. A smaller room with an ancient, boxy television has a few empty shelves. The bathroom is yellow and dirty. The bedroom has a pallet for a bed and an empty wardrobe.

It almost reminds him of the apartment he was in in the city. And Caleb Farrier’s house. _This was a home_. Why it is so far out here, he can’t understand. But there’s no one here, not for a long time, so he closes the door and hefts his backpack to the ground and goes and lies on the pallet which has a mattress heavy with dust and stares up at where the moonlight seeps in through the window and falls asleep.

* * *

 

He wakes when a train hurtles past. They’re quiet things, silver and shiny, but they still make the ground shake.

It can’t have been more than two or three hours since he fell asleep, but the sun has started to rise, now, as has the temperature. He knows it’s a stupid idea to try and walk in the heat, and especially in the day where people would be able to see him.

There’s not much to do in the small house but he’s used to spending long periods of time with just his thoughts, and in much poorer conditions than this. And here, at least, he’s alone. He can do what he wants and no one will punish him for it.

He drinks sparingly because he doesn’t have much water, and nibbles on the rations he has. At midday, the sun is high and everything is hot and dry. Crickets chirp somewhere nearby, their steady, lulling calls rolling through the shimmering air.

He sleeps propped upright against the wall, feeling exhausted all of a sudden, and only wakes for the trains.

* * *

 

He goes to the bathroom because there’s blood under his nails and his clothes are stiff with seawater but he can’t do anything about. His head is ringing, and he’s too hot. He pulls off his jacket and stares at the fine, white hair on his arms. He thinks, _that’s not right_.

It’s the first time he’s realised. That a man with dark hair and dark eyes wouldn’t have pale blond hair on their arms. He looks at the mirror, and even though it’s smashed and makes his reflection all jumpy, he can see that his hair is stilling losing its colour, the darkness receding, the roots becoming a light brown, and even a little golden.

His eyes are definitely lighter, too. A murky greyish-blue. He rubs at his eyes as if it’ll make them go dark again but they stay the same, flat a dull. It’s like he’s disintegrating, falling apart in slow motion, fading and fading until he becomes nothing but sunlight, invisible. Perhaps he’ll melt into nothing.

_“It looks good,” says a nurse, standing by with a cattle prod as three others hose him down. “Makes him dangerous.”_

_“I prefer blonds,” shrugs another, turning off the water. He coughs and shakes and water drips from his skin. “They should’ve left it.” He drops to his knees, shuddering, hands curling against the concrete. The chain around his ankle keeps him in place, not that he’s going to lunge for them again._

_Another nurse laughs. “Don’t let Macar hear you talking about his favourite like that.”_

_“What? He’s cute,” says the first nurse. “I thought he was cute in the Games and he’s still cute. And Macar doesn’t care.”_

_He looks up, but his vision is blurry, just shapes and shadows. It’s like a gauze, making the world dim and dark. They’ve done plenty to him since he arrived, but this is the first time they’ve done anything to his eyes. They put clamps around his head and peeled his eyelids back and put a numbing agent on him so he couldn’t move, could only watch as the needle got closer and closer._

_“What—what did they do to me?” he asks, throat scratchy. The nurses jump. He’s not allowed to speak but he needs to know. “What did you do to my eyes?”_

_“Hose him down,” says the third nurse, voice hard, and then the water’s on him again and he’s gasping and slipping on the concrete. He’s not allowed to speak._

He keeps going to the mirror, obsessed. He’s not crazy. This really is happening. Whatever they did to him, it’s wearing off, at least on the outside. He’s under no delusions that the wreckage inside is not salvageable, but this is enough for now.

 _So_ , says the voice, and he can almost imagine it, kicking up its feet, tucking its hands behind its head. _What conclusions have you arrived at?_

“They changed me,” he says to no one but the crickets. _The superficial changes will fade soon enough_. “To make me forget.”

And it worked. It did. They made it so that he looked in the mirror and didn’t recognise the person the person there. So even if this doesn’t help, if this doesn’t result in some epiphany, at least he’ll be able to prove them wrong, and take back a little more of who he was _before_. Even better, maybe it’ll help others recognise him. The people who knew him before all the bad things in the city will point and say _hey, you, where’ve you been?_ and maybe they’ll be the people from his sketchbook.

He finds his sketchbook and looks at the drawings. He draws a capital F by the drawing of the man with the big smile, and flowers by the girl with the dark, braided hair.

* * *

 

He leaves the little wooden house that evening, careful to listen for approaching trains so he can hide. He has an hour from the moment he leaves to get as far as he can and then duck out of sight. He makes good progress and even finds a stream, drinking and drinking and splashing cool water over his skin.

He rests for a short while, laying back in the sand to watch the stars. It is utterly silent, he sky wide and darker, like his eyes used to be. Who is up there, living amid the stars, he wonders, and smiles at the absurdity of the thought.

Successfully dodging the trains, he hits a district boundary shortly before dawn. He can see buildings in the distance, great cooling towers and chimneys. Soon enough he realises it’s District 3. Everything thrums with electricity. Everything is powered, everything is moving or buzzing or glowing. Lights, televisions, small zippy trains. The air crackles with it.

There’s a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth that he doesn’t like and can’t get rid of, and figures it’s because of the air. He can tell that it’s electricity because it makes his skin prickle and his hair stand on end and makes him remember screams and writhing and the smell of fried brain cells.

The notebook doesn’t have any people in it who are hiding in District 3, and he’s grateful. Not that it means that there _aren’t_ bad people there, just that they’re hidden too well to be found just yet. As soon as possible, he wants to leave. He doesn’t like the static and the way it buzzes in his ears, and he’s noticed the cameras. They’re everywhere, clicking and zooming and recording. And with his changing appearance, he figures people will recognise him much easier now than they did before. He can’t have another situation like with the barber or the soldier on the street corner because he’ll be toast, then, and won’t be able to do what he needs to do.

He hides and waits until nightfall to move again. The people here look happy, soldiers and civilians alike. There’s lots of building work going on here, and the streets are alive with happy, laughing people. They’re drunk on the static. And while the crowds make him anxious, it means he can blend in. It’s colder in Three than it was in District 4 so he steals a scarf and wraps it around his head, over his ears, and that hides him even better and nobody thinks it’s out of place.

He purchases food and water, and a packet of sticky bandages and a pair of thick socks to protect his feet, which are rubbed raw after so much walking.

For the night, then, District 3 will be okay. He’s not going to be able to sleep while he’s here because of the taste in his mouth and the feeling in the air but it’s not completely terrible. It’s not the city.

He walks up a cobbled hill, past glowing signs above shops and bright streetlamps and screens displaying all kinds of things, and finds a doorstep to shelter in. There’s a television in a stall selling hot drinks and the owner of the stall and one of his customers is watching it even though there’s no sound. He watches too, sees the images and the words. It’s a newsreel, and he learns five things.

  * Panem’s new President is pleased with the strides being made in all of the districts.
  * An election date is going to be announced within the week. Citizens will be able to vote for new industry representatives.
  * Powers has now been completely restored in Districts 7 and 8.
  * Enrolment numbers into new schools is continuing to smash targets.
  * The government are looking for six persons of interest, and want civilians to be alert in case any of these people are nearby.



He watches the images of the people flashing on screen. Their names and a little bit of information is written underneath. He doesn’t recognise one, or two, but he does recognise the third person. It’s the woman from District 4 who poisoned herself. Her name was Itla Dardanos and they want to know information about her whereabouts. Too bad, if they want her alive. He doesn’t recognise the fourth or fifth people, either, but the sixth person of interest makes him stop.

_Mellark, Peeta. POW. Missing 1201 days._

The world slips sideways as he stares at _Mellark, Peeta’_ s face, because it’s him. _It’s him_.

The photo dissolves and a news broadcaster appears, chatting away, subtitles along the bottom, but he can’t move. He may not have had this weird, changing face for long, and Peeta Mellark looks different than he does because he was very blond hair and bright blue eyes and he has dark hair and murky eyes but he can recognise Peeta Mellark’s face because it’s _his_.

What a revelation. A name. An occupation, of sorts. And some information about how long he’s apparently been ‘missing’. Missing? From where? He _knew_ he wasn’t meant to be in the city. He knew it.

He can feel his whole body shaking. Lights are flickering on in his head, finally bright enough to let him see things clearer.

He yanks at his sleeve to uncover his wrist.

PM12 or PM18 or DM12 or DM18.

He thought DM was most accurate, but not. PM is better. PM is for Peeta Mellark. The numbers may still be a mystery but now he has a name. He has a name!

 _Stop_ , says the voice. _Are you certain? How can you be sure?_

“I’m sure,” he murmurs. “I’m sure.”

He doesn’t trust his head—or, he didn’t, when he was in the city—but the past few months have been enlightening and he isn’t stupid, not like they told him he was, and he can recognise his own face, as odd as that sounds.

 _Peeta Mellark_. That’s who he was, _before_. That’s who he is, _now_. The name doesn’t sound one hundred percent familiar but it feels and sounds _right_ and that’s a big thought. He thought he became a person when he saw that face in the mirror in the city but he was wrong. It’s amazing how much of a person you become when you have a name.

“Peeta Mellark,” he says, out loud, and the chill that shoots through him is like electricity, but he doesn’t cower, doesn’t scream. It feels good. The monster and voice howl in unison, victorious.

He climbs to his feet, shaking still, and goes to step forward but the voice suddenly has a physical presence and pushes him back against the wall.

_Wait, wait!_

He stops. Listens.

_You have to be sure. You have to check. Look again. You need to think. Why are they looking for you? Why is Peeta Mellark wanted by the government? What did he—you—do? Why is he grouped in with creatures like Ilta Dardanos? What did you do that means you’re next to her? People are looking for you, after all. You were right._

This sends a spike of fear through his chest, jostling for space alongside the blurry elation he feels at finally having a name—his name! It’s a victory, but it’s a victory that leads to more questions, more things to be careful of.

He must be careful.

_They know what you’ve been doing. They’re coming for you._

He stands in the quiet street. What would happen, if he walked up to a soldier, and said _hello, my name is Peeta Mellark. I believe you’re looking for me?_

He’d have a bullet in his head, that’s what would happen.

Poor Peeta Mellark. In the photo on the news broadcast he looks very human. Hair neatly styled, skin clear and bright. He looks healthy, rested, in control. Peeta Mellark looks _young_. It’s like a knife to the gut because he remembers that he’s lost a lot of time. Not that he’s old, but he’s old _er_. 1198 days… that’s what, just three years? That’s a long time to be missing and to not know you were missing.

So they’re coming after him. Looking for him. Either they know what his task is or not, but they’re looking for him. Even after being a prisoner, they’re looking for him. A prisoner for 1198 days—no, less, because he’s been gone from the city for a little while now—and they want to find him.

Maybe the government is _them_. The government is the doctors and scientists and guards. Maybe they want to find him because they lost him after doing all that work on him for so long.

 _No_ , says the voice. _They aren’t the government. Not anymore._

Okay, maybe they don’t want to take him back to the cells, but someone still wants to take him somewhere. And he has things to do first. He has to hide and not let them get to him until he’s scoured the earth clean.

* * *

 

He wanders the streets for the rest of the night. Peeta Mellark’s face—his face—is everywhere. A constant reminder. A source of thrilling relief and also blind panic and dread.

There’s a train leaving early in the morning that he needs to be on, but he’s never done this before, not knowing that people were definitely looking for _him_. He’s been careful, but he needs to be better, now. It’s more likely that someone will recognise him, especially when his face is all over the news.

It’s a double-edged sword, really. He doesn’t want to get recognised because then he won’t be able to do what he needs to do, but he also wants someone to spot him and tell him who he is and was and what happened to him. And then there’s a second, secret dagger, that points out that if someone does recognise him and finds out what he’s been doing, going around killing people (even if they do deserve it), maybe they won’t want to tell him. They won’t want to be near him ever again and he’ll have to hide forever.

At the station there are two soldiers leaning against a wall, hands resting lazily on the butts of their rifles. He— _Peeta,_ because he has got to start referring to himself by his name or he could forget it—keeps his hat low, his scarf up, but listens.

“You seen this?” asks one of the soldiers, the taller one, gesturing to the screen.

“They’re loyalists,” says the shorter soldier. “Of course we should be looking for them. They deserve to be punished.”

“No, no,” says the taller one. “I’m not talking about, I’m talking about—look, look, there. _Peeta Mellark._ ”

“He isn’t a loyalist.”

“No. But he’s dead.”

“You think?”

“I can count on both hands how many Victors are left alive, okay. And most of them weren’t imprisoned by the Capitol. He’s dead. Paylor said so herself. You saw the memorial service.”

“He was declared missing in action, _presumed_ dead.”

“He’s dead, I’m telling you.”

“The Mockingjay would probably disagree.”

“The Mockingjay is nuts. He’s dead.”

 _I’m right here!_ jokes the voice. _I’m not dead!_

“Well, they must have some reason to think he’s alive,” says the short man. “They wouldn’t put out a notice otherwise.”

“The reason they’re doing it is because the Mockingjay has them wrapped around her little finger.” The taller soldiers shakes his head. “It’s a waste of time, dredging up all that shit. We should leave them be. Panem knows they deserve it.”

The train whistle screams, and he jumps. He turns and walks towards the train, crowding on with the other passengers.

 _The Mockingjay_. He’s heard of her before. She’s dangerous. But she thinks he’s alive? She thinks Peeta Mellark is alive? He can’t tell if that’s a good thing or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out my pinterest page for the board i created for this fic @saturnblushes


	14. Katniss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beware, depictions of torture ahead

Waiting for Beetee’s report is torture. A gut-deep dread settles inside me, paired with a frantic anxiety. It’s the same feeling I had while waiting for the rescue squad to return. At least this time I have some idea of what to expect.

It’s a small comfort. The hours drag by. I refuse to let it pull me down, refuse to let this cripple me. I know it’s what everyone is expecting but I won’t let it happen. I didn’t let Snow stamp me down, nor Coin, and I certainly can’t give them the satisfaction now that they’re dead.

Finally, Jackson announces that the files have been decrypted, but doesn’t call us in to go over them until she’s discussed them with Paylor. It’s agonising, watching her fly out to District 12 to talk with Paylor and her advisors.

Soon enough, she returns, and I’m ordered into Command. I walk there practically vibrating with nerves. After three years of only scraps of information, this is almost too much to handle, and it’s likely not even going to help us locate Peeta.

Jackson and Boggs are professional and calm when I arrive. Everyone else looks like they’re preparing themselves to be sick. I’m surprised to see Finnick there but then see a flash of the determined, ruthless man that made him a Victor in his eyes and know that he’s chosen to be here.

Beetee and one of his techs are also there. They both look exhausted. Beetee keeps removing his glasses and rubbing his nose. Something tells me that it’s not just a lack of sleep that’s bothering him. It’s something deeper, something in his eyes that I can only compare to the thousand-yard stare. Whatever he’s found in those files is going to stay with him.

“Mason has decided to sit out on this briefing,” Jackson begins, stood at the head of the table. “I’d like to remind you that you are free to step out at any point. The contents of the files uncovered in the Capitol are highly disturbing, but also highly sensitive, so of course nothing spoken of in this room can leave it.”

There’s a moment of silence. She gazes around the room and lands on me, probably questioning whether this is a good idea, likely coming to the conclusion that it isn’t, and understanding that they’re nothing she can do about it now.

“First things first,” she says. On the screen appear the six persons of interest on the notice I requested to be sent out. “We have had no sightings of any of these individuals, though it should be noted that the list has only been public for a few days. We will, of course, keep you updated if that status changes.”

She nods. I know she’s stalling. Finally, though, she sighs, and looks to Beetee.

“There’s no good way to begin,” she says. “But Beetee and his team have accessed the files. They contain information regarding ‘Project: Nox’, in particular records pertaining to Mr. Mellark. Beetee?”

She sits down, and we all focus on Beetee.

“I am going to be as objective as I can,” he says, voice rough. “In the sense that I will tell you what we have found and allow you to understand it however you feel fit.” He looks at me. A small smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “We all knew that what we’d find wouldn’t be pretty, but, the past few days have been some of the hardest of my life.”

He trails off, drumming his fingers on the table. “The best thing, I think, is just to get straight into it. I’ll run through everything, and you’ll all received copies of the files to read at your own pace, though they cannot leave this room.”

The tech stands and goes to the control panel in the corner of the room. An array of photos, graphs, tables, and other items appear on screen. Beetee begins to talk.

“We have uncovered over fifty thousand files from a period of almost a decade. We haven’t been able to read all of them. That will take a significant amount of time. So we focused on what is necessary, on Project Nox, and on Peeta Mellark, or the code ‘PM12’.

“Project Nox is not a new development. It has been running for a decade or so, first appearing in footnotes, small mentions. It was merely a thought, nothing tangible or spectacular. The mentions start to increase in frequency about eight years ago, however. A new corner is setup specifically for the project. It’s highly classified but still largely theoretical, but it’s there. And people are talking about it.”

“Who?” asks Gale.

“Mostly scientists and doctors. A few associates; wealthy Capitolites and others from Panem who helped to fund programs. When Nox was in its early days, it was about genetic and behavioural studies. Macar and his team were developing medicines. It was comparatively innocent stuff.” A grid of photos appear. Faces, from ID cards, of the people who worked for Macar. “You might not know all of these people, but you’ve probably seen evidence of their work. One of their biggest breakthroughs wasn’t to do with Nox, but it certainly piqued Snow’s attention. The wolf mutts in the 74th Games—that was their work.”

I swallow hard. I remember them clearly. How somehow, they looked like the fallen tributes. Clove, Thresh, Glimmer, Marvel. Rue, even.

“At this point, there’s a buzz about Project Nox. It’s not approved by Snow yet but it’s gaining momentum. And then, six months later, Snow gives it approval, it gets funding. It has a name and an aim, which was, and I quote, _‘to explore the limits of human endurance through the lens of genetic and behavioural medicine, in order to develop new technologies to improve the health of our citizens.’_

Beetee pulls off his glasses. “That’s fancy talk for _‘we’re going to torture prisoners just to see what happens’_. For the next few years there’s a lot of activity, but it’s varied. Macar hasn’t found his niche, yet, but he’s doing everything he can to do so. Over a period of four years, several hundred individuals are involved in the project. Subjects, I mean, not doctors or scientists.”

A list of names appears onscreen. The sight of it makes me feel sick. Rows and rows of names, reminiscent of the memorial in Twelve for all those who were lost to the mines. The majority of them are listed as _deceased_ , or, curiously, as _inactive_.

“These subjects were volunteers at first. Sick Capitol citizens who wanted free treatment, even if it was experimental. But word quickly spread that the intention of Nox wasn’t to heal people, and the public rejected Macar. So Macar appealed to Snow and attracts _a lot_ of money, mostly private money. There are galas, banquets, fundraisers, whatever you want to call it, all with the aim of getting people to donate.”

A series of photos appear. Macar is there, as is Snow and Snow’s advisors. Celebrities, the rich and the famous. All dressed to the nines, mingling in some luxurious building, as if it’s to support a good cause, not to invest in war crimes.

Beside me, Finnick makes a low sound.

“I was at that gala,” he says quietly. Beetee nods.

“You were. A lot of Victor were.”

“I—I can’t remember it too well, but I think I might have met Macar. Shook his hand, even.” Finnick looks away, voice breaking on the last part.

“With Snow on his side and with money rolling in, Macar gets to progress with the project at a frightening speed. They no longer accept volunteers, not that there were any to pick from at this point, so they use their prisoners instead. Political opponents, corrupts businessmen and women, anyone who speaks out against Snow. People start disappearing from the public eye and then reappearing in these documents.”

“I remember,” Finnick says. I look at him, and see slow waves of realisation wash over him. I wonder if any of the secrets he collected for decade ever hinted towards Macar or Project Nox, if he’s only now piecing it all together. “Clients gossiped. And then Cornell, a Victor from Eleven. He was outspoken and he vanished. When he reappeared he was quiet. I thought they’d cut his tongue out. But he could still speak. It was… it was like he was still, inside. As if they’d taken away his personality. He never spoke out against Snow again.”

Beetee nods. “That makes sense. Macar gave up on genetic studies because it was too slow and started work on behavioural studies. Over the next few years, up until the war, Nox is investigating how they could change someone’s behaviour, condition someone, if they could wipe someone clean and work back up again. They did countless experiments—” documents scroll over the screen, endless and endless, “—none of it can be called medicine. This was human experimentation, torture, in every sense of the word.

“By the time the Quell arrives, they’re well into their trials. They tried everything they could think of; general torture methods such as electrocution, beatings, sensory deprivation, anything to cause psychological change. Torture was the best way to get what they wanted, which was control over their subjects. They conditioned them to such extremes that some subjects are noted to have no longer respond to torture, simply because they’ve been taught not to react to the pain.

“And Macar succeeds. When the rebellion begins, when Peeta, Johanna, Annie, and the others arrive, he only sees it as an opportunity. Peeta’s name and code appear again and again in the months following his capture. The others hardly at all. By the time we went to rescue them, he was just being entered into the project. Why the others weren’t, I don’t know. I don’t know what set Peeta apart.”

I duck my head. Finnick reaches across and squeezes my hand.

“The files then make reference to a smaller pool of subjects. Just eleven individuals. Macar is focusing on fewer people, now.”

Eleven photographs appear on screen. Peeta is one of them. The photo isn’t one I’ve seen before, though it’s taken in the same style as the ones used for ID cards. He stares blankly into the camera. He’s thin, tired, stubborn, though not at all how I’d expected him to look after months as a prisoner.

“These photos date about three months either side of the rescue op,” says Beetee. I stare at the image. It’s the most recent one we have so far. “The other subjects are dissenters, their children, the children of Victors killed in the Purge. No real pattern, no connections between them that we can see, except that they threatened Snow’s regime. With this group, Macar looks at mental manipulation, fear conditioning, anything to alter behaviour. He uses traditional torture methods, as well as newer approaches developed over the course of Nox itself. They make great strides using trackerjacker venom in a process called ‘hijacking’.”

A series of highlighted phrases plucked from reports flash on screen.

“The methods used are… barbaric. They use hallucinogens and other substances to put the subjects in a state where they’re more easily manipulated, and then they do whatever they need to do to condition them. Make them forget their own names, their own faces, everything.”

Beetee’s tech sends a file labelled PV INTEL 36893A to each of us. I stare at it on the device in my hands. Gale opens the file immediately. Finnick doesn’t even pick up the device. I stare at the little folder, expecting it to bite me. I look up at Gale. He’s flicking through the file with a neutral expression, as if he’s reading through bomb designs, not records detailing systematic torture.

“What was the point of this?” asks Boggs. “Why did Macar want to condition these people? He had to have had a motive beyond just ‘seeing what happens’.”

“Well, it’s not certain for these other subjects, but in the case of Mr Mellark…” Beetee trails off, looking at Jackson.

“What is it?” I say sharply. “What is it, Beetee?”

“In the case of Peeta, it seems Macar had the intention of weaponizing him.”

“What? Why?”

“To get to you,” Gale murmurs. “Why else?”

“That appears to have been their intention. By conditioning his behaviour through intensive hijacking, they wanted to make him believe you were a threat. Snow wanted Macar to turn him into a weapon and have him rescued by us, brought back to Thirteen to—”

“To kill me,” I finish. “Right.”

“But he was gone by the time we arrived,” says Homes. “They moved him and some of the others.”

“Because it didn’t work,” I say, blinking slowly. “They tried, but it didn’t work.”

“Correct,” says Beetee. “They got pretty close, but not close enough. Peeta wasn’t stable enough. They couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t either fail to attack you, or would attack others and not be allowed near you. The conditioning was incomplete, so Macar moved him. He had more work to do to get that level of control.”

“Did he?”

“We’re not sure. The files after that point are vague, some lost. No solid result seems to have been reached. Macar keeps pushing, keeps experimenting, but I suppose that with the war, with the rebels taking the Capitol, he didn’t have an environment to work in that was conducive to his studies. They don’t abandon their work, though. Even after Snow dies, they keep going, in secret. The files stop after about two and half years.”

“So they torture him for two more years after the rescue op fail—” I stop, looking at Gale apologetically. “—after the rescue op, and then it just… stops? The files end?”

“The last ones are sparse, detailing what condition the surviving subjects are in, but have nothing about what was to happen after Nox ended, after Macar and his people scattered. It’s likely they destroyed what they could to cover their tracks. Probably executed any survivors, to stop loose ends,” Beetee explains. “It’s like when you develop a new virus. You keep it contained, and then you destroy it as a matter of safety.”

“You think they killed Peeta and the others because they were _dangerous_?”

“We can’t be sure. We don’t know what state the subjects were in.”

“Macar wouldn’t have abandoned all his work like that.”

Jackson speaks up, laying a placating hand on the table. “We just don’t know, sergeant. I’m sorry. All we have is the evidence that it _did_ happen, and that it stopped. That no survivors are listed. That those who worked for Macar scattered. We’ve located some of these people in the years since, but we’ve had nothing on Peeta Mellark, or indeed any of the other ten final subjects.”

I sit back in my chair. _You keep it contained, and then you destroy it_.

“Okay,” I eventually say. “Okay.”

I feel like I’m at the edge of an abyss, toeing the edge, and even as it crumbles beneath my feet, I feel strangely calm. I’m suppressing everything, I know that, but it’s better than falling apart. If I fall apart, I’ll be no help to anyone. No help to Peeta.

Beetee explains how we’re to navigate the PV INTEL 36893A file, explaining that inside are reports from the Nox experiments, many of which contain photos and recordings of horrific things. I pick up the tablet in front of me and tap on the file. It contains endless folders, all labelled cryptically, some just number-letter codes, others as _Nox Preliminary Notes_ or _Sensory Trials 1-23._

“This room is secure for the rest of the day,” Jackson says. “You are all free to stay and read as much or as little as you want.”

The Leegs and Homes thank Beetee and decide to leave, but the rest of us remain seated. Jackson, Boggs, and Beetee talk quietly among themselves. Gales asks questions. I open the first folder I see with a shaking hand. Beside me, Finnick sits with his hands clasped together, his eyes closed.

“Finn?” I ask quietly, angling myself towards him. “Are you alright?”

He nods. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to read it.”

“I know.”

“You don’t owe him anything.”

He opens his eyes and looks at me. “I’m just realising a lot of things. Putting it all together. And know that Annie and Jo could’ve…” he trails off, blanching.

“No one knew,” I say. “You couldn’t have done anything to change it.”

“People knew, Katniss,” he says, his expression hard. “Nothing is a secret in the Capitol.”

He stands, pushing the tablet away. His words are clipped and tight when he speaks.

“I don’t want to read it. But thank you, Beetee, for the briefing.” Beetee nods. Finnick looks at Jackson. “If I may be excused.”

“Of course,” she says, and he’s gone, the doors of Command locking shut behind him.

For the next few hours, I barely speak. I block everything and everyone out. I just focus on the file. It’s huge, a seemingly infinite amount of material that I’ll never be able to get through, not that I want to. The reports are detailed, clinical, and I was right in thinking that the video in the Capitol was a mere precursor to it all.

_Subject PM12 treated to sixth venom dosage. Hallucinations vivid; subject mentions beatings as a child and time spent in arenas as source of discomfort. Electrotherapy administered to exaggerate effects. Subject response unsatisfactory. Subject laughs when shown videos of himself and K. Everdeen that suggest she is a threat._

_Venom dosage increased 567. Subject PM12 shows signs of distress upon viewing of footage from Games. Distress amplified with electrotherapy. Subject sent into cardiac arrest. Subject revived. Venom dosage too high._

_Subject shows no response to physical stimulation. Sensory deprivation trials (16d) effective. Sleep deprivation improves pliability._

_Subject PM12 attacks REDACTED. Guards REDACTED and REDACTED take defensive measures. Subject confined (10d). Requests water and food but shows no remorse for death of REDACTED—possible improvement. Subject claims punishment for actions ‘unfair’._

There are endless photos. Peeta strung up, blooded and bruises. In his cell, thin but stubborn. Peeta in that chair, on operating tables. Photos of other subjects, too, disfigured, fighting, or sat in white rooms, covered in electrodes.

_Subject shows marked improvement. Responses to commands are consistent. Venom trial E successful when paired with REDACTED. Subject placed in dissociative state. No response to footage of K. Everdeen or associates. No response to commands. Conditioning effective but not operational. Subject punished for lack of secondary response._

_PM12 understands punishment for misbehaviour yet attempts made to hide food for subject DD2-12. Dissociative state induced via administration of Venom E, BZD 8LP.2 [40mg]._

Below that last paragraph is a series of photos and a video. Peeta, I realise, and though it takes a moment because DD2-12’s face is bruised almost beyond recognition, Darius. Darius, the young, cheerful, flamed-haired peacekeeper from District 12.

I open the video. Darius, stood hunched over in a dingy room. Guards, heavily armed. Macar and another doctor. Peeta, holding a knife.

“ _Peeta, please_ ,” Darius begs. Jackson, Boggs, Gale, Beetee and the two techs look up at the tinny sound emanating from the tablet speakers. Darius is shaking, a shell of the smiling, sarcastic man I knew back in Twelve.

I knew him enough, but I don’t recall ever seeing him with Peeta, though Peeta always was friendly with virtually everyone he met, so it’s not a stretch to think that the two weren’t at least on good terms. And months of torture must have brought them closer together.

In the video, Peeta is still, silent. He watches Darius. Macar folds his arms over his chest and waits. “ _Kill him_ ,” he commands, and Darius falls to his knees, holding out his hands. A guard forces him upright again.

“ _Peeta – please,_ ” Darius begs. Peeta steps closer to him. “ _No, no, stop, please – you know me! You do, no, stop. Stop! P_ –”

 I recoil slightly when Peeta plunges the knife into Darius’s chest, unflinching, seemingly unaware of what he’s doing, of _who_ he’s killing. He’s just following orders.

Darius chokes, coughs, and slumps to the floor. Macar puts his hands together, satisfied. “ _Good_ ,” he says, coming close to Peeta, who drops the knife as soon as Macar places his hand on his neck.

Underneath the video, a caption:

_Conditioned response successful. Command to terminate DD2-12 met with no localised refusal or emotional response._

And then, a small footnote:

_PM12 distressed 3.5 hours after death of DD2-12. Expressed confusion over killing ‘a friend’. When questioned who DD2-12 was, subject unable to verbalise. Electrotherapy administered. Response to DD2-12 neutral in follow-up examinations._

“He killed Darius,” I say, looking up at Gale. Gale nods.

“Yes.”

“They just told him to do it, and he did.”

“Macar’s treatments worked, at least to that extent.” says Beetee.

I place the tablet down, flat on the table, and hide my face in my hands.

After all this evidence, this damning proof of what happened in the Capitol, am I a fool for believing that Peeta could still be alive? The files certainly suggest so. If Peeta were here, if he was in my position, presented with endless reports of my torture, all of which pointed to the likelihood that was dead, would he still look for me? I’m not so sure that he would. He wouldn’t have to look for me, because I’d already be dead. I never would’ve survived what he did. If it were the other way around, the files would end with photographic proof of my dead body, and there’d be no other way around it.

“The evidence is here,” Jackson says.

Threads of doubt have started to fill my mind, which is unsurprising given the events of today. Part of me is telling me to move on, to focus on something else. But another part, which is louder, stubborn, refuses to let me do so. I must have inherited it from my mother, because I’m unable to let go.

“You gave me six months,” I tell Jackson, and she lifts her chin like she’s again being reminded of her regret in doing so. “I’m not going to stop until then.”

* * *

 

When I leave Command that evening, I’m quiet. Gale doesn’t ask me about it and I’m glad. He’s a little quiet too. Finnick is with Annie, so I don’t expect to hear from him for some time. So I go to Jo instead.

“Finn came to see me,” she says when she spots me walking across the gym floor. “He looked almost as bad as you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t come,” I tell her. She nods.

“Wanna spar?”

Later, when we’re in the locker room getting changed, she actually wraps her arms around me in a tight hug. She smells like pine.

“I’m sorry they didn’t get him out,” she says into my ear.

“He was gone before we got there. There was nothing we could do.”

Jo pulls back. Her brown eyes are intense.

“I don’t think he’s alive,” she says, whispering the words as if saying them any louder is a sin. “I don’t. But if you think he is, that’s okay. He was stubborn, in the Capitol. I thought he’d be the first to break, but he proved me wrong. Lasted longer than I ever could.”

She tugs on my hair, an almost fond action, and then steps away to carry on getting dressed. I don’t say anything.

“See you at dinner,” she says over her shoulder, all casual though I know it’s her checking that I’m not going to hole up in my apartment and wallow. I nod and smile, and wait until the door has swung shut behind her before allowing myself to cry.

* * *

 

Squad 451 is called into Command the following afternoon, though it’s not about Project Nox or what was found in the Capitol base. Once everyone is seated, Jackson puts the notice I requested Peeta to be part of up on the screen.

“Over the last four hours, we have received reports from District 4. Six dead. Four women, two men.”

I feel my mouth drop open. _Six_? How can this be a single person?

“Each of the victims was involved with Project Nox, so we can safely assume that whoever is doing this is after them specifically for that reason. One of the six was Ilta Dardanos, who you may recognise from the recent public notice sent out to the districts.” Jackson focuses in on Dardanos’ photo. The woman sneers at us through the camera. “But Dardanos and the others were all killed _before_ the notice went out. Whoever’s done this must have got the information from elsewhere, not from us.”

A photo of Dardanos’ body appears. She’s slumped against the wall. Blood comes out of her mouth, nose, and ears.

“She put up a fight, but eventually resorted to the same method as Soyza in District 8. A nightlock-derived toxin in a false tooth. Her attacker didn’t have time to kill her himself. The others were killed with a day or two, at various locations across the district. This was quick and efficient. The killer knew where their victims would be, when they’d be alone.”

Photos of the other five appear. Two women at a fishery, one with her neck snapped, the other having fallen or been pushed from a height. Another woman with her neck broken, and a man in a bathtub, blood pooled around him. The last man, with a bullet in his head.

“This is insane,” says Gale. “How can they be accessing all this information? Why are they targeting Nox staff?”

“We don’t know how they’re gathering the intel, though motive could range from simple revenge to something larger… possibly someone who worked on Nox and wants to tie up any loose ends, stop anyone from using what they know in exchange from refuge from us. That is the most likely explanation for how they have access to sensitive information like names and locations. It’s clear that whoever is responsible is not going to stop until everyone involved in Nox is dead. It will probably drive some loyalists out of hiding, once they realise that there’s a group out there with their name on a list.”

Beetee shows us a map of Panem, covered in red, yellow, and blue markers.

“My team and I have been combing through everything we’ve got. Stuff from the Capitol base, from previous reports, anything that could link all of this together and give us some idea of what we’re dealing with. We’re looking for patterns, but there’s nothing discernible yet.” He points at the map. “The red dots, they’re persons of interest who are known to be deceased, like Soyza, the two in District 2, and these six in District 4.”

“And the other markers?” asks Leeg 1.

“The yellow represents persons who are still alive. Scientists, doctors, politicians. Anyone from the Capitol or aligned with Snow or Coin, not just those involved with Nox, though it’s likely many of them are, in some way or another. The blue is marks reports on peculiar events.”

Beetee selects one of the blue markers, one placed in the Capitol, and a photo of a young man appears.

“For example, this is Rhys Marcin. He’s a soldier from Thirteen, currently stationed in the Capitol to assist with civilian control. A few months ago, he was knocked unconscious by a still unknown assailant, dragged into a condemned building, and stripped of his uniform. He reported it to his superiors and an investigation was launched but nothing came of it.”

He chooses another blue marker, this time in District 2.

“This is when Asbury’s ID card was used to purchase a ticket to District 4 by whoever killed him and Macar. The ID has not been picked up in Four yet, so it’s most likely that it was discarded. If this _is_ a group effort, they’re well-connected and working fast. And now that Dardanos’ face is plastered on wanted posters, they’ll know we’re on their tail. Unless we figure out where they’re getting their information from, we have no way of predicting where they’ll hit next.”

Finnick sits back in his chair. “They’ve already gone through Four. Is there anything on CCTV footage that we can rely on?”

“There’s plenty of footage. We just don’t know who we’re looking for.”

“So how do we stop them?” asks Boggs.

“We can’t predict their movements, but we aren’t pinned down,” says Beetee, his eyes gleaming. “They’ve been several steps ahead of us this entire time, so there’s no point in wasting resources trying to chase them. But if we set a trap, lure them in… they’re walk straight into our hands, along with whatever sources they’ve been using.”

“And how do you suggest we trap them?”

“It’s going to be difficult, ensuring we don’t arouse their suspicion. They’ll know we’re after them, but they can’t know that we’re looking to catch them out. They’re going after people we keep tabs on. If we broadcast the location of one of these people, all we’d need is to wait.”

“You want to compromise the whereabouts of loyalists? Expose them, use them as bait?” asks Jackson.

“Yes.”

Gale nods. “It’s a great plan.”

“Using a loyalist as a pawn?” asks Finnick.

“Their death would be no loss to us,” Gale shrugs. “They’re not on our side.”

“That’s still using a human life as a bargaining chip,” Finnick says. “That’s a grey area to operate in.”

Gale’s eyes flash. “War is one huge grey area. Don’t tell me you’re concerned for the welfare of these bastards—they’re the same people who tortured prisoners, including your wife, or have you forgotten that—”

“Do _not_ suggest I’m on the same side as Macar,” Finnick says, voice low and threatening.

“Enough,” says Jackson. “This _is_ a grey area, I’m not denying that, but right now, it’s our only option. I’ll take it up with Paylor.”

Beetee nods. Finnick stares Gale down, and Gale has the decency to look away.

“Now,” Jackson says. “A quick update on the others on our public notice. There’s been quite a buzz surrounding Mr. Mellark’s inclusion.”

“Well,” I say. “The official report given after the war indicated that he was presumed dead. And I doubt many people expected the martyr of Panem to be grouped in with a bunch of war criminals.”

“There have been calls for an official explanation,” Jackson tells me, the tone of her voice making it clear that this is exactly the kind of thing she wanted to avoid. “People want to know if we think he’s alive, and why we’ve aligned him with supporters of Snow and Coin.”

“All this attention may not be an entirely bad thing,” Boggs muses, glancing at me. “If your intention is to locate Peeta, perhaps this is good. More eyes, more ears. That’d be enough to flush anyone out of hiding.”

“The President and her advisory board are going to discuss the matter and release a statement in the coming days, to try and quell any further fuss,” Jackson says. She sighs heavily. “Though it’ll probably only create more questions.”

I lift my chin. “This is on my head. My responsibility if it goes wrong.”

“Oh, I didn’t need a reminder, sergeant,” she says, raising an eyebrow. She looks around the room. “You’re all dismissed.”

Once I’m back in my apartment, I flip on the news, and sure enough, there’s a thousand broadcasters demanding to know why the government is looking for a man they told the citizens of Panem was dead. _We want answers!_ screams one host. _What else is Paylor keeping from the people?_ asks another.

_So many years after his last known appearance on Capitol television, the question has to be asked: what is the point in looking for Peeta Mellark?_


	15. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooo they so closee!

The next few days pass quickly. It’s disorientating, more than usual, and he has to take a moment to take everything in.

Knowing that he is Peeta Mellark, that he really is a person, he exists, is like nothing he’s ever known. It’s grounding and uplifting at the same time. He’s stuck in-between, floating.

But with this new knowledge, he learns that he’s a wanted man. He’s a bad enough person that the government wants him, the _Mockingjay_ wants him; he’s bad enough to be put alongside people like Ilta Dardanos, who he killed, who called him a mutt, an experiment gone wrong. Is he the better of two evils, because he killed her? Or does that make him just the same, an equal to the doctors and the guards, allowing the cycle of killing and killing to continue?

This is a new Panem, a new world, fresh and climbing out of the past, trying to start anew and not make the same mistakes that led to war and terror. And here he is, spilling blood on hard-won soil.

Arriving in District 8, he decides to lay low, figure out his options. How is it that he’s gone from being so certain about his plans, from being so determined to get rid of the people who made him this way, to wondering if he’s no better than they are? He knows he’s running, but he can’t get away from it. His own face is everywhere, it seems, on posters, on screens, on the lips of people as they whisper and murmur, not knowing that he’s right there, listening. _Peeta Mellark Peeta Mellark Peeta Mellark—_ it’s everywhere! He’s so popular, but not for any good reasons, no, they’re talking about him because he’s wanted, because he’s a mutt and a killer and doesn’t deserve to be free.

Maybe death _is_ his only option. Ilta said he would be dead before he would get all his answers. Everyone seems to think he’s dead.

At least then he won’t hurt anymore and won’t hurt anyone else, even if they deserve it, and it will be better for the survivors of the war if he’s not there, dragging it all behind him, doing exactly what they fought to end once and for all.

He buys a small room in District 8 using the little cash he has, and keeps the curtains drawn, the door locked. He reads through the notebook again and again. Names and locations. Names and locations. He could do it. Couldn’t he? Right? _Right?_

But everything is against him. It always was, but he’s acutely aware of it now. His time is running out. Soon they’ll catch him, or one of the doctors will be more ready than the others, stronger, better fighters. They won’t hesitate like the tall man in District 2 did. They’re shoot him and his brains will splatter out. Perhaps he should sent the notebook to the government. They’d know what it was. And then it wouldn’t matter if he was dead, because the government would be able to track down all the people and do what he’s trying to do but much faster.

The President’s spokesperson tells the people of Panem that Peeta Mellark is thought to be dead, but that they aren’t sure, and that ‘recent developments’ have led them to seek information about his whereabouts. _Recent developments_ —whatever that means. It’s pretty obvious what it means. It means they know it’s him, they know he’s going around killing people, that he’s not dead, and they want him to stop, because he is wrong; he isn’t the judge. He isn’t the jury. He sure as hell isn’t the executioner. Who is he to think that he was?

He has no time, no hope, nothing. He has name but at what cost? How can he go on like this, killing, destroying? He should be destroyed, removed from this fledging world. He would welcome it, perhaps. Welcome the darkness and the stillness and the quiet. Finally, the hum in his ears would stop. The crackling buzz. The monster would die as soon as he did, the voice would fade away. And Peeta Mellark would be gone, really gone, like everyone thought.

How do you care for a dead man, he wonders. How does a dead man learn to live?

* * *

 

He looks at the notebook for hours, waiting for the other shoe to drop, but nothing slots in place. He remembers fuzzy things, nothing is permanent in his mind, only on the page, and even then he doesn’t understand it.

If he surrendered, he would give this notebook to them. They wouldn’t know that he’d memorised all the names and the locations. They’d be happy that they had it. Perhaps it would be enough to convince them not to kill him. Because though it seems like the only option, the best option for the people of Panem, to be gone and forgotten, he wants to be selfish. They tried to kill him before. The doctors always brought him back but they tried, and he didn’t make it easy for them. And he’s here, isn’t he? He’s alive now. If he died, if he gave up, that would only mean that they’d have won, and then all this he’s doing—it would be worthless. The selfish part of him wants to keep on living even though he knows he’s a parasite.

 _Maybe_ , suggests the voice, _maybe you could bargain with them. They’d believe you. They’d be thankful for the book. They wouldn’t kill you, just put you in a hospital and that would be okay._

Maybe, he agrees, maybe. But he wouldn’t ask for that. He would ask for one thing, and that would be to see his family one last time. To meet the people he’s been drawing just so he could see that they were real, that it wasn’t it head making things up. That would be nice. To see them and know that they were real.

He’s just so tired. So tired. Of everything. Living like this is like dragging around a deadweight on a chain. He wants all of it to stop.

* * *

 

_“How about that?” says the doctor, smiling. “I knew we’d break you eventually.”_

_He hangs by his wrists, face puffy and shiny with blood, body aching. It feels like his shoulders are going to give way. His toes graze against the concrete but it’s not enough, never enough to carry his weight. The man who’s been beating him for the past three hours is breathing hard, a raspy sound, and drops the belt on the table. He wants to laugh. The irony of it all. If only they’d used a rolling pin._

_“Peeta,” says the doctor. “I’m so glad you’ve decided to work with us, and not against us.” The doctor looks at the man. “Bring him down.”_

_When the chain slackens, he slumps, unable to hold his own body weight, onto the floor. An orderly comes in with a gurney and with the help of a guard and the other man, they lift him on. He’s wheeled away. They hose him down and put salve on his skin and he almost feels like he did before the Games, when Portia and her team had plucked him like Rooba plucked chicken to make him ready for the Capitol._

_They give him a hot drink but he can’t hold it very well with his bandaged fingers. They shouldn’t have broken them, then, should they? He sips it carefully, and looks blearily up at the doctor sat opposite him. She’s smiling, hands clasped in front of her, in a crisp white coat, her hair pulled back. She looks pleased. He hunches over his drink, angling his body away from her._

_“Now, Mr Mellark,” she says. “What can you tell me about the plan to extract the tributes from the arena?”_

_He brings the cup away. The liquid inside is stained red from his mouth._

_“I don’t know,” he says. “They didn’t tell us anything. I didn’t even know there_ was _a rebellion planned.”_

_The doctor sighs. “Peeta, we all know that just isn’t true.”_

_He pushes the mug away, stomach beginning to ache._

_“I’m telling the truth,” he says. “Katniss and I—we didn’t know a thing. They planned it all and never told us… we didn’t know there was a plan.”_

_He frowns. Why didn’t Haymitch say anything? Why didn’t_ anyone _say anything? Not Finnick, not Johanna, no one thought it would be a good idea to mention what was going on? They could have helped the cause! Haymitch was an idiot to keep it from them. Just look where it’s got them now; imprisoned in the Capitol, with no rebellion, with no hope of ending the Games. Haymitch was a fool to think that there was any hope._

_“Miss Mason told us quite a different story,” says the doctor, in a grating, simpering tone. “She told us that you and Katniss Everdeen were rather central to the little rebellion you had planned.”_

_Peeta narrows his eyes. Johanna—why would she lie? He never should’ve trusted her, and he let her go, he left Katniss leave him in the arena with someone like Johanna Mason. What was he thinking? This is his fault. He never should’ve let her out of his sight because maybe, just maybe they would’ve got away from the others, from Finnick, Beetee, Johanna, everyone. And then he would be dead and Katniss would have won and she could’ve gone home to District 12 and lived out the rest of her life with her mother and Primrose and Damnit even Gale._

_“You trust a word that comes out of her mouth?” he asks, anger pulsing through him. “How can you trust a person like Johanna Mason?”_

_“What makes her so different from you?”_

_He sputters. “Are you serious? She’s a liar—she’s deceitful and manipulative and, and, and I never knew anything about any rebellion! Katniss didn’t and—”_

_“By your very nature, Mr Mellark, you are a liar and you are manipulative,” the doctor says. “I saw you on the television, how you convinced Panem of your true love. We saw everything, and now you’re asking me to_ trust _you?” She laughs. “It’s really quite absurd.”_

_“That was part of the Games,” he spits. “Snow made us do that—that wasn’t us, that was just what we did to survive! We haven’t done anything wrong! Katniss and me—we know nothing. Nothing.”_

_The doctor sighs. “I’d really hoped you were on our side, Peeta.”_

_“I—I’m…” he trails off, because how can he answer this. Of course he’s not on the side of the Capitol. He never was, he certainly isn’t now. How can the doctor expect him to trust her? Does she not see the wreck that is his face? Is she unaware of how they’ve kept him locked up in a cell for the past few weeks?_

_“Where’s Katniss?” he says. “I’ll do whatever you want but please, please, just let her go. She doesn’t know anything. Let her go home.”_

_“I can’t do anything until we get some answers.”_

_He slams his hand down on the table, instantly regretting the action when pain shoots up his arm. “I don’t know anything!” he hisses. “You’re wasting your time asking me.”_

_“Oh,” says the doctor. She stands. “Oh, so you believe Miss Everdeen has more information?”_

_“What? No, no, I—”_

_“This is the cooperation I was looking for,” she smiles. The two guards standing by approach, and he struggles away when they cuff him._

_“Hey!” he says. “Wait, stop, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”_

_“Until you can cooperate, you will remain incarcerated, Mr Mellark,” the doctor explains, slowly, like she’s speaking to a child. “You must understand why we have to do this.” He begins to shout but she speaks over him, calm and collected. “Hopefully Miss Everdeen will have the information you are refusing to give us.”_

_He kicks and struggles but the guards drag him away, dumping him back in the cell he came from, slamming the door shut. He bellows and shouts but they don’t listen, don’t believe him when he says that he never knew a thing._

_Later, he starts to wonder that maybe he did. That perhaps somewhere in his unconscious mind, he does know, he did know what was going on. And if he did, then surely Katniss did, too, and that means they’ll do whatever it takes to get the truth out._

_And then he hears screaming. It’s distant, somewhere far-off, but he knows those screams. He knows those sounds. Nightmares on the train, shouts in the arenas. He knows who that is, what they’re doing to make her scream like that._

_He pounds on the door and shouts until his throat is raw but they don’t come, and eventually the screams stop, and all he can hear is his pulse thundering in his ears._

* * *

 

He tries to bargain, tries to figure out how he can win in a battle that is already lost.

He was a prisoner of war. He knows that. The doctors and the scientists did terrible things and that wasn’t his fault, not really. Surely the mockingjay would take pity on him for that.

And if not… if not, he won’t fight them. He won’t run. He’ll welcome whatever they decide for him. Perhaps being Peeta Mellark won’t turn out to be worth it in the end. For all he knows, he could find people—or they would find him, the more likely scenario—and they would only have tales of the monster he was, of the horrible things he did. Maybe they’d wish he had stayed dead.

* * *

 

The monster is restless again.

It knows there are people nearby, so close, within reach. The voice bargains with him, siding with the monster: _they deserve it. They do. And only you can stop them from doing what they did to you to anyone else. How could you live with yourself, letting them carry on living, when all they did to you was reduce you to a shell?_

And the more the voice talks, the more the monster paces, the angrier he gets, reminded of it all. Of everything he’s forgotten, of everything he’s remembered. The beatings, the electrocution, the weeks spent with scraps of food, the hours spent listening to screams, the blood they painted onto his hands.

So, one night, a woman whose name was listed on page three of that old man’s notebook stumbles cross his path, and he strikes. He can’t help himself. The buzzing and the screeching have reached a fever pitch and he’s been without sleep for almost three days and even though part of him is trying to hold him back, hold him down, he’s sick of the restraints and the voice laughs and squeals and tells him to keep going, to do this, to cleanse Panem and he follows the woman back to her house and breaks in and knocks her over the head with a wooden stool when her back is turned to him.

She drops like a sack of flower, but isn’t unconscious, just dazed. She pushes herself upright, groaning, and he stands over her, breathing hard.

“You _bitch_ ,” he says, barely able to hear his own voice, the noise in his head is so loud. He’s shaking, but this time it isn’t because he’s scared, it’s because he’s mad, he’s enraged, he wants nothing more than to see this woman pay.

And the woman looks up at him and gasps, scuttling back until she’s pressed against the wall on the other side of the room.  She almost shouts but clamps her mouth shut. He tilts his head at her behaviour, and then hears someone upstairs, a young girl, and his eyes meet the woman’s.

“You—you shouldn’t—how can you—?” she stutters, face white as a sheet.

“Who’s upstairs?” he asks, feeling his jaw twitching. The woman quivers.

“No, please,” she says. He wonders if she remembers him saying those exact same words before she injected him with god knows what, chemicals that left him trapped in an unmoving body, chemicals that burnt under his skin, chemicals that made him scream and scream and scream.

She comes at him with a knife and that knocks him out of his stupor when the blade digs into his arm. He barely feels it and shoves her back, one hand around her throat to hold her against the wall.

“You—you—” she gasps, scratching at his arm, at his face. “You killed—you killed the—”

He glares at her, watching her fight. How dare she? _How dare she_?

Fury, white-hot and unstoppable, crushes through him and he slams her to the ground. She knees him in the crotch and grabs the knife again when he tips backwards, his own bodyweight working against him. She holds the knife at him, blood on her teeth, in her hair.

“Get out of my house,” she rasps. “Get out before I call the guards. I’ll tell them—I will. I’ll tell them that Peeta Mellark is alive after all, that he’s a killer, that he’s Macar’s perfect subject.” She wipes at her mouth. “They’ll execute you. You’re a war criminal.” Her eyes are wide, crazed. “You’re no better than me, no better than any of us, playin’ god like you are. Get out of my house.”

He lifts his chin. “There is no god in this world,” he says, low and steady, and he lunges forward. She slashes at him with the knife but he snaps her wrist and she drops the blade, and then he sees red and she makes the same sound he did when he was choking on his own blood and then goes silent and still and is dead, the way he should’ve been but never was.

There’s footsteps on the stairs and he slams the kitchen door shut, wedging a chair beneath the handle.

“Mama?!” shouts a voice. “Mama, are you alright?”

He wedges the knife in the wall and steps out through the rear entrance of the house, walking and then running.

By the time he gets a few blocks away, the alert has been raised, and soldiers are running in the opposite direction he is.

* * *

 

He wakes in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, shaking and shivering and barely makes it to the bathroom in time to vomit. His entire body is revolting against him, and his head is filled with that crackling buzz and the monster’s howls and the voice’s low murmurings and there he is, what’s left of someone called Peeta Mellark, trapped in the middle of it all.

In the mirror, Peeta Mellark stares back at him. It’s his face, albeit one with a little facial hair, deep shadows under his eyes, and a sickly pallor, but it’s him. It’s his but it’s not and he pulls at his eyelids and sees that his eyes are definitely blue, now, still a little murky, but blue. What they did to him, it’s wearing off. It’s like blood, washing clean.

He goes to splash water on his face but there’s blood on his hands, dried, crusted around his nails, and he can’t wash it off, it stays and he can’t wash it all away and it makes him wretch. The flashes of memory hit fast, knocking him back, gasping for air, scratching at his chest because it’s too tight, his lungs won’t fill, won’t expand, his ribs are collapsing inwards—

_Screaming, burning hands, a pig snorting, shuffling through mud—a countdown booming overhead—smoke billowing into the sky, children screaming, running away from the school and towards the mines—a boy begging for mercy from the grass below—an empty house—flashing lights and cameras crawling and a man gasping and cooing and laughing—a train surging and surging and never ending, pulling him on and on—hot leaves and hushing waves rolling back and forth up the beach—tick tock tick tock said the old woman and birds screaming, screaming and screaming—lightening hitting and the sky fracturing into a thousand pieces to reveal metal and wires—and darkness, absolute blackness, a hurtling, whirling void filled with whispers and agony deep in his bones and—_

“ _Fuck_!” he bellows, slamming his fist into the wall. The tiles crack and his knuckles throb, the skin splitting, the bones crunching. He’s glad the building is mostly empty. Curious neighbours wouldn’t be ideal right now.

He can’t do this. He can’t. He can’t he can’t he can’t, not anymore, not when he’s doing what the doctor did, picking and choosing who got to live and die. He can’t. If he’s going to be a person he can’t be like that. Peeta Mellark can’t have been that, he can’t have been, and if he was and they find him and they want to kill him or lock him away forever and ever then that’s okay, he will welcome both, but the thought of being alone, being just this _thing_ , this _shadow_ for the rest of his days, that’s worse than any of the things they did to him in the Capitol. That would be worst of all, to be left with nothing but what they left behind, what they constructed, and the scraps of whoever he must have been hanging on.

The television in the bedroom is blaring. He didn’t even realise it was on. It’s a news broadcast, asking for information about war criminals and Peeta Mellark is there—he’s there, he’s a wanted man, people want to get him because he’s being doing bad things or because he did bad things and they wished he had stayed dead but the doctor wouldn’t _let_ him and how is any of this fair? He did ask for this. Didn’t want any of this. But here he is, time running out, options few and far between.

He can’t do this. He never should’ve started. He’s good at a lot of things and yes killing these people is one of them but he can’t—he can’t make that all he’s good at. He doesn’t want to decide that anymore.

All this hiding, all this keeping his head low, he can’t do that forever. The right thing to do would be to step in front of a train or maybe grab one of the soldier’s guns to send a bullet through his brain. They took that from him, they kept taking and taking and all he wanted was for it to end so maybe now he can end it all and make it a true act of defiance. They left him alive so he’ll destroy their work himself.

So he waits until he knows a train will be coming through and goes and finds the tracks and stands, listening to the wind rustling the sea of corn and wheat and cotton growing all around, a yellow ocean like the blue one in District 4, and he hears the whistle of the train and he takes a breath because finally, _finally_ , he’s getting to do what he wants. The train rushes in and he closes his eyes. He’s going to do it. He’s going to step in front and it’ll all be over and they’ll find the notebook in his backpack when they pull his mangled corpse from beneath the wheels and they’ll be happy, pleased.

And then the rain speeds past. It knocks him backwards.

_You’re a godamn coward._

He’s a godamn coward.

He’s selfish and he’s exactly what they said he was; he’s a liar and he’s a mutt, he’s an experiment, the doctor’s favourite, and he’s a coward.

When the train is gone he drops to his knees in the gravel and gasps for air.

 _You want to be safe_ , says the voice, quieter, now.

He nods, cheek scraping against the dirt. He wants to be safe. And safe can be when he’s dead but he can’t do it. He needs someone else to end it all, end _him_. He can’t. Safe could be when the mockingjay hunts him down and decides to lock him up and make him live but at least he’d be safe, then. And nothing would matter.

A small part of him tugs down, like a child at his sleeve. It tells him that it doesn’t have to end, that he can be safe and no one will kill him, no one will punish him, either. That seems like punishment in itself.

 _Make up your mind_ , says the voice, and it’s right. He has to decide. What does he want; to be dead, or to live on? He can’t make that decision, though. He can’t. He doesn’t want to. He should let someone else take on that responsibility.

He walks away from the tracks, walking and walking until he hits the town. It’s dawn and people are already awake. Soldiers, yawning and sipping coffee, a few of the civilians who need to be awake before the rest. No one pays him any attention.

His face glows on the screens. _Mellark, Peeta. POW. Missing 1207 days. Mellark, Peeta. POW. Missing 1207 days. Mellark, Peeta. POW. Missing 1207 days._

He catches sight of himself in a shop window, cap pulled low, collar high, hiding himself away from everyone, from all and any prying eyes. He’s a coward. God, he’s a coward. If he really cared, if he really wanted to do good, he wouldn’t be hiding like this. He’d be telling the government how to destroy what remains of the Capitol in all its insidious forms. He’d tell them every detail and then they’d do what he’s so good at and then they’d close the loop and kill him too and the world would be right again, pure and clear.

They’re looking for him. Why should he hide? _Because you’re selfish, because you’re a coward._ You’re exactly right, voice. He’s hiding because he’s selfish and he’s scared and he’s an idiot, an _idiot_ going around thinking he was right to do this.

There’s a camera high up on the wall of the building opposite, watching the street. He can see it, reflected in the window.

He turns, heart pounding. _This is it, this is it, you’re not being a coward now, are you?_

He looks up at the camera. It stares blankly back at him, blinking a single red light. He pulls off his cap, tugs his scarf away from his chin, pushes his hair back from his face, and looks at the camera, right at it. He counts in his head the way he did when they’d shock him. It was the best way to try and keep himself in control, to count the seconds before the electric current was switched off. He counts, _one two three four_ —he counts until he gets to fifteen, and then puts his cap back on with a shaking hand, tugs his scarf up, and walks on.

They’ll know. They’ll follow.

The morning air is crisp and cold, fresh against his skin. He walks and he walks until he reaches the apartment he’s been renting and he climbs the stairs of the crappy building that’s definitely not up to code and is being rented to a few people on the lower two floors who can’t afford anything else. He locks himself in, though securing the three bolts and the chain seems like overkill when they’re going to come bursting in anytime now. But the wait is going to kill him, if the mockingjay and her people don’t, and the anxiety spirals hot and stinging through his chest, knowing that he’s just knowingly destroyed all the time he had on his side by looking into that camera.

He dumps his backpack on the couch and takes out his own notebook, the one with the drawings, and the notebook from the old man, the one with the names. He lines them up so they’re square in front of him and he sits cross-legged on the floor like he used to do—like Peeta Mellark used to do—when he was a boy in First School.

He flips through his drawings and doesn’t touch the old man’s lists anymore. He traces the faces he’s drawn and wonders if he’ll ever find out who they are and if these people will hear about him and about how the mockingjay came to kill him and whether they’ll cluck their tongues and say _gosh, what a shame_ , or if they’ll smile and say _good riddance_.

He sets the notebook back down. Lines it up.

And then he waits.


	16. Katniss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i can't believe i wrote over 100,000 words of this thing and then put the scene i actually wanted to write in chapter 16

Haymitch calls me from District 4. It’s a video call, so I can see the sand and the water behind him, and Effie steps into frame to wave and chat before heading off to do whatever she does now that she’s no longer an escort. Haymitch looks less relaxed than he was when I saw him. He looks like he hasn’t slept well, almost like he’s hungover, though I know that’s not possible, both because of the tolerance he’s built up and because Effie has restricted him from drinking as much liquor as he once did.

“I read the files,” he says, squinting slightly in the sun.

Ah. So that’s what’s done it.

“You did?”

“Yes. Beetee sent over a copy. Effie wasn’t interested but I… I flicked through some of it.” He clears his throat. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

“Stop apologising for things that aren’t your fault,” I say. “What happened, happened. We can’t change that. We can’t go back, no matter how much we might want to.”

He presses his lips into a thin line, watching me.

“Are you alright?” I ask him, and he laughs.

“Of course I am,” he says.

“I’m serious, Haymitch.”

“I’m fine. I’ve dealt with worse.”

“You have?”

“Well,” he says. “Perhaps not worse, but certainly comparable. I’ve been around a lot longer than you have, kid.” His eyes shift as he watches something out of frame. “How are you?” he asks.

“Jackson sent me to the therapist the first time. I think she knows I can handle it now, though I don’t doubt that she’d like to see me lose it, just so she could kick me off the team.”

“If she keeps thinking like that she’s not going to _have_ a team,” Haymitch says gruffly. He shakes his head. “How much of it did you read?”

“Enough.”

“And you still…”

“Yes. It sounds stupid, even to me, I know. But—”

“You have a feeling.”

“Yeah. I have a feeling.”

He nods. “Alright. How’s the search going?”

“Nothing yet. The files didn’t tell us if he was alive, they just kind of… stopped. But a load of people involved in Nox have been turning up dead. Someone’s been going around killing them. A rebel splinter group, we think, or perhaps some of Snow’s allies, making sure no one is alive to reveal what they know about Nox, or other projects.”

“Yeah, we heard. Six dead in Four alone.”

“You’re safe?”

“Paylor sent two soldiers over to talk to us about it. She’s doing what she can. We all know there’s plenty of people who think the Victor’s Purge is yet to be completed.” He raises his eyebrows and exhales. “I doubt the people killing Capitol doctors and scientists are going to come after me.”

I bite my lip. “You’ll be careful, though?”

“Sweetheart, you’ve got more to worry about than me.”

I scoff. “I’m talking about Effie.”

He laughs, tucks a piece of hair behind his ear. “I’ll be sure to let her know.”

* * *

 

Jackson, Boggs, and Gale spend hours strategizing on the best way to draw in whoever’s targeting ex-Nox/ex-Capitolites. I don’t want to be involved. It’s hypocritical of me, I know, to feel queasy at using one of these people as bait, but after the Games and the war, I can’t use people as pawns anymore, even if it is for a greater good. In my opinion, it’s a slippery slope.

They settle on an older man hiding in District 11, who was a kind of spokesperson for Project Nox, a bridge between Macar and his people, and Snow and his advisors. Jackson picks him because if the mission fails, or if we don’t stop the perpetrator from killing him, it won’t be seen as much of a loss on our side. Other potential victims are deemed too important to risk.

We’re less than an hour away from sending out a beacon masked as one of his own radio signals to lure in whoever’s behind the previous deaths, when we get an alert of our own from District 8.

“I can’t believe this,” says Jackson, looking at the pulsing red dot on Beetee’s map. “It’s like they know what we have planned.”

The initial reports indicate that the victim was a nurse, and that her daughter found her beaten to death in the kitchen of the house they had been hiding out in since fleeing the Capitol at the end of the war.

“Messy,” Boggs grimaces at the photo of the woman’s body. “Was it unplanned?”

The trap is postponed until more information comes in from Eight, and Paylor demands that every single person of interest that we know is in hiding there is guarded, just in case the killers strike again. I head to the gym to train with Leeg 1 and Gale, and then spend the rest of the day with Finnick and Annie. Yet by nightfall, Jackson calls the squad in for an emergency meeting.

I get that horrid tightness in my gut again as I run with Finnick away from his apartment to Command, bumping into Johanna and the Leegs on the way there.

“Any idea what’s going on?” asks Leeg 1 as we clamber down the stairs and race along the corridor, deeper into the base. The guard lets us through without checking our IDs.

“Not a clue,” says Finnick. “But it’s the entire squad. It must be important.”

“You think someone else has been killed in District 8?”

“I damn well hope so,” Jo mutters.

But that isn’t the case. We bundle into Command and take our seats, waiting for Beetee and Jackson to show us more crime scene photos or to announce that three other scientists have been found dead in their homes, but they’re silent instead. Boggs converses quietly with the two of them, so quietly that we can’t hear, but it’s enough to tell me that something big has happened. I look around the room. Everyone else has come to the same conclusion.

I look over at Jackson, who’s standing with one hand on her hip, the other on her forehead as Beetee and Boggs mutter at each other.

Eventually Jackson turns and faces us, but she doesn’t say anything at first. She just stares at the table we’re sat around, clearly deep in thought. Beetee keeps taking off his glasses and rubbing his nose.

“What’s going on?” Gale asks warily. It seems to shake Jackson out of her stupor. I’ve never seen her like this. She’s usually unflappable. She looks at me, and purses her lips.

“What is it?” I ask, feeling my heart beginning to beat harder in my chest. “It is about District 8?”

Jackson looks at Boggs, sighs, and then looks at Beetee.

“Play the footage,” she says.

CCTV footage appears on the screen. It’s like the footage from District 2, but better quality given the time of day, less shadowy, easier to decipher. The camera is still for a long twenty seconds, filming a quiet street. A young boy on a bike cycles past. Two soldiers heading for their station stroll by. And then the camera zooms, moves in jerky, robotic movements, focusing on a figure walking down the street.

“Is that—is that who we’re looking for?” asks Gale? “Is this the guy from the footage in District 2?”

Jackson, Beetee, and Boggs don’t answer. We all just watch. I narrow my eyes, following the figure. It may be daylight in the footage, or at least early in the morning, but it’s still a little fuzzy, and the cuts from camera feed to camera feed are jerky and jarring, clumsily stitching together frames as it follows this one person through the streets of District 8.

The figure walks and walks, head down, dressed in a cap pulled low over his face, a scarf around his neck, a bulky jacket. They look like anyone else, not walking too fast or too slow, casual, calm, blending right in. That’s been our problem—they’ve been ghosts this whole time, this man has been caught on camera but always in the shadows, always obscured some way or another.

The figure stops in a street, outside a shop. I watch him standing there. He’s facing away from the camera, hands shoved in his pockets.

“What is he doing? Why are we watching someone window shopping?” asks Jo.

“Wait,” says Beetee, voice tight.

We do. We wait. The man stands there for almost five minutes, though the footage is sped up. Does he even know how long he’s been standing there? Does he know there’s a camera trained on him?

As it turns out, he does, because the next thing we know is he’s turning and looking at the camera, meeting it dead-on, unflinching. I frown. He—

He looks down, tipping his chin against his chest, and removes his cap to reveal a head of what looks to be mousy, dirty blond hair. He tucks his cap under his arm and unravels his scarf.

“It’s a striptease,” Finnick murmurs to Jo, and she snorts.

The man lifts one hand to sweep his hair from where it’s flopped over his forehead, and as he does, he looks up at the camera again and—

And he stares. He stares for barely ten seconds, and then puts his scarf and cap back on and walks away, melting into the street like it never happened.

“Oh my god,” says Leeg 2.

I stare. I can feel my heart racing. I can tell my mouth is wide open. I can tell everyone is just as shocked as I am, and staring at me. All I can do is let out a short laugh.

The man in the footage—it’s Peeta.

A thinner, bearded, older Peeta, but Peeta. And he’s in District 8. He looked up at the camera, made it clear that it was him.

He’s alive.

“Everdeen,” says Jackson. I stare at the screen where Beetee has paused the footage on Peeta’s face.

“He’s alive,” says Finnick.

“He’s alive?” says Johanna. She laughs. “Holy shit!”

“Play it again,” I order, and the footage blurs as it rewinds. I watch again, watch him looking up, and the frame pauses on him as he looks into my soul. I feel his gaze in my heart.

“Peeta,” I breathe. I feel like I’m shaking and frozen at the same time. I feel like I’m moving a hundred miles an hour even though I know that I’m still sat in my chair. So much is hitting me all at once- shock, surprise, grief, joy- that I’m not quite sure _what_ to feel, what to focus on. I just stare at Peeta, unable to believe what I’m seeing but also celebrating the fact that I knew it, that my feeling was right, that all this time, he was out there.

The room swims for a minute, the walls and ceiling shifting back and forth, and I can hear people talking around me but it all sounds like I’m underwater. Gale is yelling something, Johanna is yelling at him, and Finnick has placed his hand on my shoulder, probably wary that I’m liable to go into cardiac arrest, and Jackson is talking with Boggs and Homes and the Leegs are saying _what the hell is going on_ over and over.

“He’s alive,” I finally say. I feel a smile breaking over my face, sharp and wide and— “He’s alive.”

“You already said that, brainless, months ago,” says Jo. “You have the biggest bragging rights now, you have no—”

“Sergeant, listen to me,” Jackson interrupts.

“How did he get to District 8?” Gale asks.

“Congratulations, Katniss,” Finnick murmurs.

“We need a plan for extraction,” Gale says.

“Can we say one thing at a time, _please_?” Beetee calls, taking off his glasses again.

“Sergeant,” says Jackson, coming closer to me, raising her voice. “Listen to me. I know this is a lot to take in, for everyone. I’m still coming to terms with it myself, but—”

“How did he get to District 8?” I echo Gale. “How long has he been there? Why did he do that?”

“Squad!” Jackson bellows, looking like an exasperated school teacher. Everyone falls silent. “We have protocol to follow and I can’t spend this valuable time answering your questions because I simply _don’t know_. We got this less than an hour ago and I was expecting it just as much as you were. So please, listen to me.”

“We have to go and get him,” I say, standing up. “Why are we waiting? This is the proof we needed—this is, this is bigger than anything, we found him, we actually _found_ him and—and—”

“I’d say _he_ found _us_ ,” Jo says. She smirks. “Always knew he was smart.”

“When do we leave?” I ask Jackson, and she sighs.

“Everdeen, sit down.”

I do as she says, mostly because she looks like she’s about to suspend us all, but also because my legs give out from beneath me.

“All we have is that footage. Yes, it’s proof that… Peeta Mellark is alive…” she trails off, like it’s the first time she’s actually put those words together and for them to be true. “…and that he’s in District 8 as of a few hours ago, but we don’t know _where_ he is exactly and we can’t just call in every soldier we have stationed there to ransack the district. Until we pinpoint his location, no one is going anywhere. We have techs reviewing the footage to find out where he is, it shouldn’t be more than an hour until we have answer.”

“Are you sending us to District 8?” I ask.

“Yes,” she says, and I grip the armrests of my chair. “Until then, I expect you to all be prepped and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. When I have sufficient information, I will give you your mission, but until then, you will obey my commands to stay in base, understand?”

I nod. Around me, the others do the same.

Jackson releases a breath. “You’re all dismissed. Everdeen, over here.”

The others file out, talking over each other like gossiping old women, and when I’m left behind, Jackson stares at me for a solid minute. I can’t tell if she wants to throttle me or punch me square in the nose, but whatever it is, she looks stunned.

“I’ve seen a lot during my years as a Commander,” she says. “But I’ve never seen something like this. It’s a damn miracle, sergeant, your target handing themselves in like this…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

I struggle for words for a few seconds as well. I stare at Peeta. I think my brain is still processing what I’m seeing. _Peeta is alive. After three years, he’s alive._

“Thank you,” I tell her, and she furrows her brow.

“Thank you? Not _I told you so_?”

“Yes, but, thank you, as well.”

She sighs. “It’s because of you that we’ve got this footage in the first place,” she says wryly. “If it were up to me, I’d have had him written off two and a half years ago. I would’ve called for a funeral and a memorial and moved on.”

“I know.”

She fixes me with a look. “Looks like your head won’t roll after all.”

I meet her gaze. “You sound disappointed, Commander.”

She raises a single eyebrow. The throttling or punching seem more likely. “Dismissed. Expect my orders.”

I salute, and run from the room. Outside Gale, Jo, Finn, and Boggs are waiting. Boggs slaps me on the shoulder.

“You’re lucky, I’ll give you that,” he says. “I’ll see you at the hangar.”

As soon as he’s gone, the others are in my face. We walk to the lockers to retrieve our combat gear and the entire time, Gale is thinking out loud, Finnick is repeating how he can’t believe it, and Jo is telling me that it’s going _to suck when I see him ‘cus I thought he was dead_.

In the locker room, we suit up. Helmets, goggles, earpieces, vests. Weapons, checked over and over to make sure they’re smooth, ammo, stocked up and ready. And then we’re in the hangar, waiting, along with the others. Like any other mission, except we barely know anything about what we’re about to do, only that we have to locate and extract.

“I don’t get it,” says Gale. “Why would he do this? Why now? Why in District 8? Why make it so obvious?”

“I agree,” says Homes. “Something’s changed. If he’s been alive all this time, why pick now to show his face—literally?”

“Perhaps he didn’t want to be found,” says Finn. “Three years… who knows what’s happened during that time, and that’s not including the imprisonment and the torture.”

“He’s probably fucked up and didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” says Johanna. “Remember when _I_ got back from my lovely post-Games retreat? I was a fucking nightmare and I was only there a few months.”

But for all of their questions, I have no answers. Of course I don’t. It’s been three years of nothing. Nothing at all. And then, suddenly, we get Macar, and the Project Nox files being blown wide open, and now this? Homes is right. Something has happened. Something must have changed for Peeta to suddenly appear like this.

Alarm bells are ringing in my head but I can’t find it in myself to listen, to heed what they’re signalling. Because Peeta is alive. _Peeta is alive_. It’s the strangest feeling, to know that I was right not to give up, that all this time he’s been out there, somewhere, and now he’s so close, so close.

I almost feel nauseous, especially when I remember what happened the last time I thought Peeta was coming back to me. He didn’t. He didn’t come back. And then Project Nox happened and the war raged on and Prim died and my world fell apart and I’d only just started to myself back together again. Three years of death and destruction and trying to rebuild. I’d just begun to get used to the fact that my old life was gone. Prim, dead, my mother more absent from my life than ever before. Gale and his family, though still close to my heart, are different. And Peeta, lost to the same flames that sent me flying.

We’re all different. Haymitch was right. No one has escaped from this war unscathed. We’ve all changed. Peeta was the single promise that I had something from my old life back again. Not from before the Games. That life, that world, was lost to me, torn away the moment Prim’s name was pulled from the bowl at the Reaping. But the world created from that, where I had Peeta, even if I didn’t quite understand it yet, was there, and alive, and despite everything, it lasted until the moment I shot that arrow at the sky and brought the arena tumbling.

 _Peeta is alive_.

I start to cry before I can try to stop it, and tears rolling down my cheeks, my body caving in on itself as if to say _it’s alright, now, he’s okay. Everything is going to be okay._ Finnick pulls me to him, hugging me close as I sob openly into his chest. But I’m not sad. Or I am, but it’s a sadness that’s been seated within me ever since my father died, one that sharped again and again and became a fine point when I read those Nox files, when I heard Peeta screaming my name.. It’s too much. Everything is too much. Because Peeta is alive and I’m going to find him and never let him go again, put him somewhere he can’t get hurt.

“Guys,” says Boggs, walking over. I look up at him, rubbing at my face, catching my breath. “We’ve got the order.”

We board a hovercraft two minutes later. Everyone is tense, legs jiggling, fingers twisting, pacing back and forth, back and forth. The hovercraft takes off, speeds towards District 8, towards Peeta, towards what I’d always believed in but could barely bring myself to hope for.

I stand by the window, watching Panem slide past, occasionally eaten up by clouds. Boggs runs through our mission orders.

“Jackson has confirmed that surveillance footage has been used to track Peeta to a building on the outskirts of the town in District 8. There have been no sightings of him since he was seen last entering the apartment block, so it’s thought that he’s still there, though we don’t know where exactly. We are to enter the building as a unit. The Leegs, Homes, Mitchell; you three will remain outside in case he tries to escape, or if there is an outside threat. There is a chance this could be a trap, and we need to treat this as we do any other mission. It is dangerous, it is high-risk. Understand?”

We all nod.

“This is to be seen as any other extraction operation. The rest of us will enter the building. We will clear each floor, removing any civilians we find. When we find Peeta, it will be standard extraction procedure as always. We approach the way we always have; he is our target, and we can’t deny that he won’t be dangerous. He’ll be waiting for us, no doubt, so we have to be careful. We don’t know what state he’s in.”

I open my mouth to protest, but quickly go back on myself, because Boggs is right. After three years, after Project Nox and whatever’s gone on between then and now, we just don’t know what we’ll be met with. I can’t guarantee who I’ll find. I know it’ll be Peeta, but I know it won’t be the Peeta I remember, kind and loving and strong. I let him slip from my fingers and there’s a high chance I’ll never get that back. I’m not naïve enough to think that things will go back to normal. I know that there never was a normal to begin with.

And I’ve had enough time to reflect on Peeta, on everything. I’ve had the time to figure myself out, to go through everything that’s made me the person I am today. That process, though agonising at times, had forced me to face some truths, about myself, about the people around me.

Peeta wasn’t all good. I know that. I was blind to it, ignorant to it, but I was always aware of it, somehow, deep down. I knew what he was capable of, just like he knew what I was capable of, right from the start. I don’t just mean in terms of how he could enchant a crowd, how he could lie better than anyone I ever knew. I’m talking about the darkness that resided in him, beneath the suits designed for him by Portia and Cinna, behind the golden curls and sparkling smile. I saw the darkness. How he could always hide his better than I could ever hide mine. Those nights on the train going from one district to another let me see hints of what he hid. And that made him dangerous. I know that now. Because when he hid it so well, people didn’t suspect him, didn’t know what would be enough to make him snap.

I think of him in the Quarter Quell, how he killed Brutus without a thought. I think of him yelling at me, furious at my actions on the Victory Tour. I think of all the little instances that didn’t fit in with the persona he projected for so long. The little fractures that let the inside out.

That’s not to say that he was a bad person. Peeta was— _is_ —the best person I’ve ever known, but no one is all good. I’m not, that’s for sure. So who knows who Peeta is now? I know I’ve changed, that parts of me have been uncovered in the course of war that before I could keep down, mostly unaware of them even being there.

“Everdeen,” Boggs says, pulling me out of my head. “Can I trust you to be professional?”

My cheeks heat, but I know Boggs is right. He’s concerned about me, about the squad. He waits.

“Unless I can trust that you are going to act on the best interests of this squad, I will knock you out right now and leave you on this hovercraft.”

“I understand,” I say, nodding. He holds my gaze. “I’m professional,” I tell him.

I know I have to be. I know I have no other choice but to treat this as any other extraction mission. But I’d be lying to myself to think that I could ever treat it exactly the same. Of course I can’t. Yet just because this is a mission I’d started to believe was never going to happen doesn’t mean I’ll lose it. I know what’s at stake.

“Okay,” says Boggs. “We’re fifteen minutes out. Is everyone ready?”

We all confirm that we are, and then we just have to wait. The minutes drag on like years. I go over the mission again and again. The routine is the only thing that’s keeping me vaguely calm right now. Without it, I’m pretty sure I’d be hysterical, caught between passing out in shock and laughing my head off at how I was right, I was right all along, that—if you can believe it—Peeta is _alive_ and just within reach, and only getting closer.

No longer will he slip from my grasp. I’ll never let him go again.

The hovercraft drops us off at Command-Eight, and we’re driven in an armoured truck towards where Peeta is thought to be. The streets surrounding the area have been cleared, though there’s still so much of the district that’s yet to be rebuilt that there really aren’t that many people loitering in the first place.

The building is almost falling down, a grey concrete rectangle jutting from the earth, and it’s inconspicuous, just the kind of place you’d expect someone like Macar or Ilta Dardanos to be hiding out in, and by extension an ex-victor, prisoner of war like Peeta.

With the Leegs, Homes, and Mitchell surrounding the building, we move as a unit into the ground floor. There are three elderly people and two young men living there, plus the landlord. They’re cleared out and taken to a safe distance by some soldiers from Eight. On the next floor is a young family and a middle-aged man. We do the same. They look shocked to see a group of five heavily-armed covert operatives breaking down their doors as they sit down to eat their evening meal, but leave without making too much of a fuss.

The next few floors are empty, unsurprisingly. Our intel says that most of the building has no water or power. That the landlord managed to get _anyone_ to live in the place is a miracle, and certainly explains why Peeta could hide there if no one was checking the books.

Gale and Boggs are in front, then me, then Jo, with Finnick bringing up the rear. We ascend the stairs quietly and quickly, guns aimed upwards along the stairwell, earpieces buzzing. Homes assures us that the coast outside is clear. Boggs mutters reports back to Jackson listening in from District 5.

We reach the sixth floor. Peeling paint, smashed windows, bullet holes puncturing parts of the concrete walls. And it’s absolutely silent. It’s getting dark out, too, and only a few flickering lights show us the way down a short corridor, otherwise we have to rely on the torches on our guns.

“Look,” says Gale, pointing.

A door to an apartment, number 25, looking like every other door we’ve passed, except that there’s faint yellow light seeping out from beneath it, soft as butter.

Boggs motions for us to get into formation. Then, with a flick of his hand, we move. Gale shoots out the door hinges and the lock. We surge forward into the small apartment, boots thundering, and my heart is in my mouth at the possibility that he’s here, that he’s right here, that—

Gale comes to an abrupt stop. He’s filling up the space, so I can’t see whatever he’s looking at. I push past Boggs, pushing forward as the rest of us crowd in and Leeg 1 confirms that she has eyes on the apartment in question and I shove past Gale to see Peeta.

Boggs was right. He is waiting for us.

He’s kneeling on the ground, head bowed, hands raised, perfectly still. In front of him, two notebooks.

And he’s there. _Peeta_.

I must say his name because he looks up at us, seemingly confused. He must have expected us to come in guns blazing. The silence clearly wasn’t expected.

My hands move to unclip my chinstrap before I even think.

“Everdeen,” Boggs warns, but I ignore him, dropping my gun, pulling my helmet off.

Peeta watches my movements. He’s thin, thinner than I can ever remember him being, his hair darker than it ever was, with a beard, dressed in a bulky jacket. But his eyes—they’re bluer than ever before, it seems, with deep shadows carved out beneath. He tracks me, watches closely, his arms lowering a fraction of an inch. He doesn’t look dangerous to me. If anything, he looks half-afraid. Who can blame him, what with five people dressed in black, holding automatic weapons bursting in? He knew we were coming for him, but did he know it would be _us_? Did he know it would be _me_? Did he care?

“Peeta,” I say, pulling off my goggles.

“Everdeen,” Boggs says lowly. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Peeta, it’s alright,” I say, removing my mask, pushing my hair back from my face. “It’s me. It’s Katniss.”

He stares. He says nothing. He just stares. His arms drop and the silence is oppressive, only broken by Homes requesting a status update. Peeta stares long and hard at me and no one else, his face blank, giving little away. In the corner of my eye, I see Gale’s grip on his gun tighten. He and Boggs are aiming right at him.

“You,” he says, the words rough, gravely, thick in his mouth, as if he hasn’t spoken for a long while. I feel something in my chest snap.

“Peeta,” I say. He looks more confused than ever. His eyes drop down to one of the notebooks on the floor, the dark crimson one, and then back at me.

“Get down on the floor, now!” Boggs orders, stepping forward. But Peeta doesn’t move. He just stares. Something about it… something is _off_ , and it makes my stomach churn.

“Peeta?” I say, and he stands.

“On the ground! Now!” Boggs orders. Gale shifts his weight.

“ _You_ ,” Peeta says, and I shake my head. _What?_

Boggs and Gale surge forward, as does Finnick. Peeta is forced to the ground, flat on his stomach, and his arms are tied behind him, securely cuffed. He doesn’t fight. He doesn’t struggle. He’s just silent, pliant, staring at the floor and then staring at me, apparently blind to the four guns pointed at him. Boggs hauls him onto his feet and he stumbles before righting himself.

“Target apprehended,” Boggs reports. “Extraction imminent.”

Peeta looks at Boggs. “Mockingjay?” he says slowly, and I feel my blood run cold.

He’s bundled out of the room before I can do or say anything. Jo stays behind. She pulls off her goggles as well, shoves down her mask.

“Katniss?” she says carefully. I feel my mouth opening and closing. Jo bends down and picks up the two notebooks, flipping through them. “Oh, shit,” she says. I take the books. The black one is filled with names, some crossed out. Ilta Dardanos, Macar, and Asbury are just some listed. The other book is filled with scribbles and sketches. One page is covered in renderings of my own face, over and over.

“What’s wrong with him?” I ask, horrified at the way my voice breaks.

“We’ve got to go, come on,” says Jo, taking the notebooks back and pushing me out of the apartment. “Boggs, we’re following,” she speaks into her comm.

We exit the apartment and hurry down the steps, the way we came. By the time we break out into the open, Boggs, Finnick, Gale and Peeta are already loaded into the truck with the others. Johanna speeds up, but I pull her back.

“Jo,” I say. Her eyes are dark. She grimaces. I wait, unable to think of anything else but Peeta’s expression, his confusion.

“Jo,” I plead, now a whisper.

She closes her eyes briefly, and then speaks.

“I don’t think he knows who you are,” she says. The words are like knives, cutting deep. But I know that she’s right. I knew it was the case already. Jo grips my arm. “He doesn’t remember you. I’m sorry.”

“Everdeen! Mason!” Boggs bellows. We run for the truck, clamber on board, slam the doors behind us. The engine roars and we drive, back to Command-Eight, back to the awaiting hovercraft. It’s the fastest mission I’ve been on, the quickest extraction ever, and yet it felt like it lasted a year. Everything was in slow motion, and now it’s all crashing down around me.

Finnick talks to Peeta in quiet, soothing tones as the truck bumps and jostles through the streets. I press my head against the wall and try to breathe.

On the hovercraft, Peeta is manhandled into a seat, strapped down securely. He doesn’t fight, of course. He’s complacent, staring, watching our every move. And every time he looks at me, I don’t see what I once did. There’s recognition, but it’s empty.

_He doesn’t remember me._


	17. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

The wait is a long one. Longer than he thought.

But he’s good at waiting. And it only seems fair that the wait eats him up alive after all he’s done, all the blood he’s shed thinking it was right, thinking it was his task to cleanse Panem of the people who built him to be this way. It was right to stop them from doing that to anyone else.

He heard them entering the building, clearing out the handful of people that lived way down on the bottom floors, climbing up and up to his floor. He didn’t even flinch when they blasted down his door like it was nothing, or when they bundled in aiming their guns at him.

Though he didn’t expect the silence. Or the leading soldier to say _what?_ at the sight of him knelt, waiting. They must have expected a fight. He expected a fight, too. It always ended in a fight.

He doesn’t want anything from them. He just wants some answers. No more hurting anyone. No more. If blood had to be shed, it wouldn’t be by his hand. No more.

They come into the small apartment, gear rattling. One of them, shorter than the others, says _Peeta_ and it takes a moment for him to look up because that’s his name and it feels right but this is the first time someone has addressed him as such and it takes a minute for the call to get the response. Something in his head clicks into place, and the system begins to whirr, lights flickering.

The shorter soldier lets go of their gun, letting it bang against their hip. They unfasten their helmet and another soldier says something low, a warning, but not to him, and the shorter soldier pulls their helmet off. He watches, carefully, as they remove their goggles.

It’s a girl.

“Peeta,” she says, and then—

He feels his arms drop. The shock, the surprise—he can’t help it. It’s _her_.

“Peeta, it’s alright,” says the girl, pushing a lock of black hair from her face.

_It’s the girl from the dreams, the notebook._

“It’s me,” says the girl, like that makes so much sense.

He feels his lips part. His arms drop. Some device of some kind buzzes with the sound of a voice. A taller soldier tightens the grip on his gun, adjusting his stance, barrel pointed, ready to shoot. _Shoot_ , says the voice, but instead, he says:

“You.”

It’s monotone, not a statement, not a question. Barely a sound.

“Peeta,” says the girl, and he still can’t believe it. He stares, and glances down at his sketchbook. His drawing has come to life. He looks back at the girl. Who is she? Why has he drawn her?

The leader of the group yells something at him but he can’t hear it. He feels like he’s underwater.

“Peeta?” asks the girl, and he stands. More orders are bellowed, guns click.

“You,” he says, furrowing his brow. The girl shakes her head, appearing confused, grey eyes shimmering.

Three of the soldiers surge forward, and he doesn’t fight when they wrestle him to the ground. His chin thuds against the concrete and he bites his tongue, tasting blood in his mouth, and his shoulders ache when they wrench his arms behind his back and secure heavy cuffs around his wrists. The cuffs shock him, a low-level static, keeping him in place. They know he’s dangerous. They’re being smart. But the electricity is almost a comfort.

But where is the mockingjay? He expected the mockingjay to be here, to apprehend him, to bring him in. He looks around, as he’ll find someone who fits the descriptions he’s heard, but none of this makes any sense. Why isn’t the mockingjay here? He’s dangerous, he’s a threat, they must want him brought in by their best.

He’s hauled to his feet.

“Target apprehended,” reports the soldier in charge. “Extraction imminent.”

He looks to the soldier, who eyes him with a look of confusion and wariness, like he’s a ghost. _Extraction_? They’d being kind to him. He doesn’t want to push his luck but he has to ask. “Mockingjay?”

They bundle him out of the room, but he doesn’t miss the girl’s expression. She must fear the mockingjay too. It confirms what he already knows—if the people tasked with bringing in a killer like him are afraid, the mockingjay must be beyond anything he can imagine, something borne of war and blood, built of shells and smoke and dust.

_Perhaps the two of you will be friends._

The soldiers aren’t gentle as they haul him down the stairwell. He trips but they wrench him upright. They drag him through the street, towards an awaiting truck, one like the vehicles he’s seen throughout the districts. They heft him in and he sits between a tough-looking blonde woman and a handsome bronze-skinned man. He’s still cuffed, and they all have their guns, but the bronze man talks to him in low, soothing tones. Not that he hears a word that’s said to him. He watches the people around him.

 _Go!_ screams the voice. _Get out of here!_ He forces himself to ignore it, to push down all instincts to run. This is what he needed to do. To get answers, to protect the people who survived the war. Even though he wants to get away, to fight, to go back to the quiet of his apartment where no one was pointing guns at him, he knows he can’t.

But for now, until they decide on what they’re going to do with him, he will have to wait. He’ll have to watch, and take in what he can, figure out what he can, and embrace every minute they keep him alive.

The truck stops soon enough, and he’s loaded onto a hovercraft, like the ones he’s seen flying here and there. They strap him down, now, so all he can move is his head and his fingers. He forces himself to be compliant.

He watches the people around him. Strangers, all of them. But not the girl. And she knew his name, too. He watches her the most. It must make her nervous, because she keeps looking away, but he can’t help it. All those drawings, all those dreams, and there she is.

Another female soldier, this one with short, choppy hair and wide brown eyes, sits beside the girl, holding his sketchbooks. She catches him looking.

“Thank you,” he says, because that’s what people are meant to do, and he needs to work on not making people uncomfortable, and he really does mean it, glad that his sketchbooks are safe.

The girl blinks, surprised, and then she nods. “It’s good to see you, Peeta. It’s been a long time.”

So, this girl knows his name too. And not just because he’s her target. He nods. It must have been. So long he’s forgotten. Hopefully she won’t realise this, it seems rude of him to have done so.

“Yes,” he says. “A long time.”

He’s aware how his voice sounds, how monotone it is, but he can’t help it. Everything is moving too fast and his brain can’t catch up, so it’s focusing on other things, and not on the intonation of his speech.

After a short while, the girl and the other female soldier—her breast pocket reads MASON—stand and disappear, followed by the dark-skinned soldier in charge, and a tall, olive-skinned man with a stubborn set to his jaw. The ones left behind are there to guard him, he’s not stupid. But the bronze man keeps trying to talk to him.

“We’ll get you back to Five. There’s medical facilities there. We’ll get you checked out, okay?”

He doesn’t respond. He has no choice in the matter after all.

“Are you alright?” asks the man. He has a soft accent. After a minute of silence, the man clears his throat. “Peeta—you’re alright. You’re safe, now. You’re safe.”

He leans his head back in the seat and closes his eyes. It’s not what he deserves, but gods, he wants it.

* * *

 

He’s transferred to a ward as soon as the hovercraft touches down in District 5. A million doctors and nurses fuss over him like he’s some gift, and he tamps down the urge to flinch away. Doctors and nurses have never been good before, and he can’t trust that these aren’t the same, but that’s not his call to make, now. He dug his grave, and now he has to lie in it.

They check all kinds of things, hmm-ing and ah-ing and scribbling notes, constantly throwing concerned, surprised, and shocked expressions his way. He sits quietly, obediently. He will do what they say, as long as they don’t hurt him. He’ll cooperate.

They draw vials of his blood, check him over for injury. They’re especially interested in his leg. They give him a line because apparently he needs fluids, and then a stern-looking doctor asks him a series of questions about whether he has pain, if he knows where he is, if he knows his name, his age. He tries to answer but most of the time he just shrugs. Why are they asking him these things? They should know—he wants what they know, that’s the whole point.

They give him a quiet, warm room of his own. There’s a bed and a monitor and two guards outside. He sits on the edge of the bed, watching the lines monitoring his heartrate from the pads stuck to his chest, listening to the humdrum of the facility, trying to sort out the fuzz in his head. The voice is silent, thankfully, and the monster is nowhere to be seen, and the crackling buzz has faded. The handcuffs they’ve put him in aren’t electrified this time, just simple silver manacles around his wrists.

He sits for a little while, and then starts to feel drowsy, and feels himself tipping sideways. He pushes himself upright a couple of times, forcing his eyes open, but it gets too much, and he slumps against the pillow and the blankets and sighs at how soft they are, how they smell like bleach and antiseptic, and he drifts.

Some time later, there’s a knock on the door. The doctor reappears, still stern, followed by an armed guard and a woman.

“Mr Mellark,” says the doctor. “It’s an honour to meet you. I’m Dr Murdoch. I’ll be your primary physician for the moment.”

He stares, and Dr Murdoch nods.

“This is Dr Wells. She’s a psychologist, the best in Panem.”

“Hello, Peeta,” says Dr Wells. “I’m sorry your circumstances joining us where better. This must all be very confusing for you, but we want to ensure you’re cared for to the best of our ability.”

“We’re going to look after you,” says Dr Murdoch. “Our initial tests show you appear to be in rather good physical health, all things considered.”

“We all want you to know that you’re safe, now, Peeta,” says Dr Wells. “You’re safe.”

He laughs. _You’re a parasite. The body welcomes the parasite._ The sound erupts from him like a gurgling drain. The two doctors exchange glances.

“We will do everything in our power to help you,” says Dr Murdoch.

He thumbs the scratchy bedsheet he’s sat on.

“Peeta,” says Dr Wells after a few moments of silence. “Do you have any questions?”

He thinks hard. He has so many, _so many_ , and worries that they won’t have all the answers he needs. But he senses now that they want him to prioritise, so he asks what he needs to know.

“Is the mockingjay going to kill me?”

The doctors are clearly not expecting this, and some part of him takes pride in the fact that he can make two professionals’ mouths drop open.

“The—the mockingjay is no longer… operational,” says Dr Wells, trying to find the words. “The title was retired, for a lack of a better word.”

He looks away. Oh.

“Who killed her?” he asks, because that’s the only option he can see. The mockingjay must be dead, and of course no one else would want to take on that mantel, not with the blood weight it carries.

“She isn’t dead,” says Dr Wells. “She was with the squad who retrieved you, Peeta.”

His head snaps up. They take note of this behaviour.

“The mockingjay—the… she was there?” he asks. “Who?”

Dr Wells looks at Dr Murdoch, who presses his lips into a thin line.

“I—I’m not certain I’m authorised to tell you that information,” Dr Wells says. Dr Murdoch shakes his head.

“Peeta—our priority right now is to keep you safe, keep you healthy. And you are safe, Peeta.”

“But which one was she?” he asks, feeling his heart race. He tries to stand but the shackles keep him on the bed. Neither doctor steps back, but their head shift back in their necks like birds. “Who were they? Are they all on her side?”

“Peeta, listen when I tell you—”

“Why are you lying to me? I came here for answers and you won’t give me them.”

“We’re not lying, Peeta, there’s simply complex matters at hand and I don’t think that it’s wise to tell you what you’re not cleared to know. Until we understand the events of the past three years, it’s not safe to release all the information we have.”

Dr Wells steps towards the door, beckons her colleague.

“I’m sorry, Peeta,” Dr Murdoch says.

He can feel his chest tightening—the monitor beeps faster and faster. He wants to scream, he wants to run, he wishes he’d stayed in the shadows and never came out. He wishes he’d never seen himself on that screen in District 3. He wishes he’d never come out of the rubble.


	18. Katniss

I go to Paylor and demand access to see him.

“I’m not a doctor, Miss Everdeen,” she says, looking over a file. “And until a doctor gives me the all-clear, I’m not giving anyone except essential medical staff access to him.”

I’m furious.

“How can you do this?” I demand. “I—I’ve _searched_ for him, for all these years, and now we’ve got him! He’s here! And you won’t let me see him?”

Paylor says nothing.

“What have the doctors said?” I ask. “They must have said something—if they hadn’t there’d be no reason not to let me see him.”

Paylor’s gaze flicks up to me. She lifts her chin.

“I first want to congratulate you on your efforts to locate Mr Mellark. You have lead the squad well, and have provided us with infinitely helpful information about Snow and Macar, as well as the whereabouts of countless lost civilians. I also wanted to thank you for respecting the word of the medical professionals assigned to Mr Mellark’s care, but I’m starting to think that appreciation is misplaced.”

“You expect me to give a damn?” I ask. “I want to see him. He wants to see me. For you to prevent this… that’s not what I voted for when I helped you become president.”

Paylor’s jaw ticks. “If you had just let me finish speaking,” she says, sitting back in her chair and opening a drawer in her desk, pulling out a thin file. “Sit down.” I do as she asks. “This is the initial report from the doctors. _This_ is why I wanted to take this slowly.”

I feel my blood run cold. Every file I’ve come across in the past few years that was in relation to Peeta proved that what happened to him was beyond anything I could’ve imagined. I believed it, of course. The depravity of the Capitol has long since shocked me. I’d built up an image of whatever was left of him, and it so sharply contrasted with who I left behind in that arena, who I saw on that television screen.

I’m not stupid—I knew he would be different. That if he had survived hell, he wouldn’t be the man I knew. But all that flew out of my mind the minute I saw him in that apartment.

He was there, he was alive. And apart from the haunted depth in his eyes, he looked to be mine. His confusion was a shock. A knife to the gut. He didn’t appear to realise who I was. The recognition was hollow, off-kilter.

Paylor passes me the file. Inside in a short report of just a few paragraphs, signed by the doctors assigned to Peeta.

It tells me, in clipped medical language, that although his physical health is far better than anticipated, apart from clear evidence of torture and abuse, his mental state is far worse than anyone could have guessed.

_Further testing is required to ascertain the full extent of the psychological effect of the patient’s abuse. Preliminary observations indicate severe retroactive amnesia as patient seems unable to remember key individuals from his life. Sustained trauma has resulted in memory loss in the patient that may or may not be retrieved with therapy._

I stare at the words until they swim.

“They need proof,” I say after a minute of chewing my lip. “They need proof, don’t they?”

“Dr Murdoch and Dr Wells agree that they need to observe him for longer to try and unpack the full extent of what’s happened, yes. Until we can confirm exactly what was done to him and what he’s been doing since, things will be touch-and-go.”

“I can give you proof. You have to let me speak to him. That’s the only way you’ll be able to see the full extent of this—retro- _retroactive amnesia_.” I fix Paylor with a stare. “Please. I want to see him. After all this time—I _need_ to see him.”

“And if what you see upsets you?”

“I’ll deal with it,” I say. “Like I do with everything else.”

* * *

 

The next day I’m waiting in a long corridor in the medical unit in Five, my knee bouncing, my head spinning. I’ve barely slept, barely eaten.

Peeta’s doctors came and spoke to me when I arrived.

“We’re still not sure what he does and doesn’t remember. We barely know anything about what happened to him, and if he does remember it, whether he’ll be willing to tell us. We don’t even know how he’ll react to you, Katniss.”

I tell them I already know at least a little more than they do, after witnessing Peeta’s lack of reaction myself.

“Just chat with him, don’t put too much pressure on him getting things right. If he seems distressed, you can always leave.”

 _Just chat with him_. It’s such an easy thing, or it should be, at least. It’s all I’ve wanted for the past three years. All I wanted was to have Peeta by my side through all the hell of post-war Panem. That he’s alive is a miracle unto itself, but yet again Snow has lingered on, his damage extending beyond the grave. Peeta is back with me, finally, but in what state, I’m unsure.

Dr Wells, a psychologist, prepares Peeta for my arrival. I wait outside the door and when she returns, she gives me an encouraging smile.

“He appears to be in a good mood. I told him he has a visitor, a good friend. He said he was happy to meet a friend even if he didn’t remember them.”

I pull at my sleeves. “He doesn’t remember many of us, does he?”

“So far, it doesn’t look like it. He hasn’t asked for anyone by name. He informed us that he remembers faces and names and places, but that he doesn’t understand why they were important to him. He doesn’t understand the significance. It’s a pretty common thing with patients who have endured sustained abuse.” Dr Wells purses her lips. “It’s best if you ask him if he knows who you are, rather than telling him what he _should_ be remembering.”

I nod. “Okay.” There’s little else for me to say.

“You should know that he’s restrained for the time being.”

“What? Why?”

“We’re not yet certain that he doesn’t pose a threat to us, especially you.”

“But he doesn’t remember who I am—he can’t be a threat if he doesn’t know the people around him.”

“It’s just a precaution,” says Dr Wells.

I stand at the door to his room and fidget. I mess with my hair, making it tidier. I wonder if I should’ve asked Effie for some makeup to hide the shadows beneath my eyes. I wonder if I should’ve begged Haymitch to come, to be here to give me some sage words of advice. Of course I’ve had the others—Boggs, Paylor, Gale, Johanna, and more—to tell me what they think I should do, but I know after years of fighting that oftentimes plans are never stuck to. That on the field, it’s a matter of whoever can move the quickest.

A med tech hands me an earpiece.

“Are you ready?” asks Dr Murdoch, Dr Wells’ colleague. I nod, and a moment later the door slides open.

I walk in. My breath catches. I think for a minute my legs are going to give way but they hold.

Peeta sits at a table just off the centre of the room. It’s white, clinical, void of any personality, filled with square lines and sharp lighting. He’s cuffed to the table, the chain looped through a hook, dressed in soft white clothing. He looks up when I walk in and lifts his chin, assessing.

“Hello,” I say, as the door closes softly behind me.

“Hi,” says Peeta. He doesn’t smile, but furrows his brow just slightly.

“May I sit?” I ask, gesturing to the seat opposite him, and he nods.

“Are you a doctor?”

“No,” I say, my head spinning at how distressing this is, how eerie to look at Peeta and know he doesn’t recognise me and my place in his life. “I’m a soldier. A sergeant, actually.”

Peeta nods. “I’m sorry that I don’t remember your name. Or who you are. But I kept… I kept drawing you. I don’t remember much, but I kept seeing your face.”

“That’s okay,” I say, swallowing hard. “We haven’t seen each other in a long time and… and what happened to you was…” I trail off, unsure of what to say.

“It was bad,” Peeta says, not accusingly, not distraughtly. Just like he’s commenting on the weather, stating a fact that he’s long become used to.

“Yes,” I say. “It was.”

“They let you visit me so I guess you were pretty important to me,” he says. There’s a sharpness to his tone, to his eyes, that sets me on edge. Something tells me that it runs deeper, too, that it’s not just a surface tension, a defense set up by a person who survived prolonged torture and a war.

“You could say that,” I say, looking down at the table, picking at my thumb. When I look up, he’s watching the movement. His palms are still, flat. He used to fidget too, but not now.

“I’m Peeta,” he says. “But you already know that.”

“Yes,” I say. “I did.”

“Came as a surprise to me,” he says wryly. “Guess they shocked it out of me pretty good, huh?”

My head snaps up to look at him, and I’m stunned when he barks out a laugh, a low chuckle. It sounds just like him, but it’s darker, and doesn’t light his face up like it did. It makes me a little uncomfortable.

“I’m Katniss,” I say. “Katniss Everdeen. We… we went through a lot together.”

He nods slowly. “That name sounds right. And I remember some stuff. Meadows and wolves… and a beach. Cameras. Figured out they were arenas.”

“So you remember some stuff but not… not the significance of it?”

“Yeah.”

I nod. “Okay.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no. I’m just happy—happy you’re alive, Peeta. Happy you’re here.”

He nods.

“How long have you been looking for me?”

“Long enough.”

His gaze flickers to the door behind me. “They’re gonna ask me questions about what happened to me, aren’t they? What I did all these years?”

I think of the files, of the doctors and scientists turning up dead across Panem. It’s had to reconcile those acts with the Peeta I knew. I’d seen him kill before, seen his tougher side, but it was only in hints. This has exposed the darkness within him, and he doesn’t even realise that it used to be something he hid. “Yes.”

“Will I get in trouble?”

“I won’t let you get in trouble,” I say. The corner of his mouth flickers up into a smile, but his eyes stay dull, staring me down.

“You’re going to protect me?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.” He moves his hands, and the shackles drag against the table between us. I itch to reach forward and grab his hands, to tangle his fingers with mine, but my flight response is beginning to shout, triggered by Peeta’s unexpected coolness. I don’t want to run, but I’m ready to, sensing that something isn’t quite right.

“You think you could do me a favour and get you out of these?” he ask, lifting his wrists. “I’m not going to hurt anyone. I just want answers to all the questions in my head. I want to be able to make sense of what I remember—figure out who I was.”

“Who you are,” I mumble.

“Sure,” he says.

“I didn’t want you in cuffs,” I say to the table. “Wasn’t my decision.”

“Smart,” he replies. “They wanted me to kill you. In the Capitol. That was their plan. But it didn’t work.”

I feel my face turn white as a sheet, and I recoil slightly in my chair.

“You didn’t know that,” Peeta observes.

“No,” I say. “No.”

“They wanted me to kill you, to end the war. They wanted—” he stops, and I watch as something clicks into place in his mind, making his eyes widen and snap back to me. “You. You’re the mockingjay.”

“I was,” I say, grimacing at the term. “Not any more. Not officially. But it was a rallying point during the war and people like to hold onto the symbol of it all.”

Peeta inhales. He rocks slightly, gaze drifting to the left.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember all that,” I tell him, not wanting to distress him by mentioning the war. “You weren’t there.”

 _Careful, Katniss. His heart rate has spiked,_ comes Dr Murdoch’s voice in my ear.

“I thought the mockingjay was going to kill me,” Peeta mutters. “People said… people said she was crazy, that she killed her fiancé.”

“Not everyone liked me,” I say. “There’s plenty of people who hated me as the symbol of the rebellion.”

“Did you kill them? Your fiancé?”

“No!” I say, my voice rising in pitch. I clear my throat. “No. I didn’t kill anyone I didn’t have to kill.”

“Did you want to kill me?”

“I never wanted to kill you.”

“Why?”

“I—” I come to abrupt halt, my mouth opening and closing. What to say, to explain the complexity of what we were. “I cared— _care_ —for you a great deal. I just wanted to know that you were alive. That you were safe.”

He seems perplexed by this. “Oh.”

“I promise you’re safe now, Peeta. You can come to me whenever you want. Ask me whatever you want. I’m sorry, sorry for what happened to you. I wish I found you early. I wish I could’ve prevented what they did.”

Peeta’s face switches, just like that. From shell-shocked to amused in a second. “Me too, Katniss. Me too.”

* * *

 

I leave the med ward feeling like I did when the war was declared over. Lost, adrift, and missing something dearly.

I answer the questions the doctors have and leave quickly afterwards, taking to the streets and finding a small eatery set up by locals. I find a seat near the back and hide my face the best I can, not wanting attention right now, just wanting to be alone.

This Peeta—it’s _him_ , it is—has something missing. Something about him isn’t right. it’s uncanny, almost. Eerie in how he looks like the Peeta I remember but for shadows under his eyes, how he sounds the same but for the monotonous sharpness to his tone. This Peeta is borne of war, the result of torture. I’d long prepared to find him a different person to the one I saw in the arena, but not like this. I want his smiles, his eyes following me, his words like silk to my ears—I want all of that, and now it looks like it’s gone.

He’s a stranger, but he’s not. He’s the one person I know best in this world, and he was the one person who knew _me_ best. And now this version has returned, and I don’t know what to make of it.

I figured out that I loved him not long after his last appearance on Capitol television. That truth had always resided in me, but it was only then that I realised it. It seemed fitting that I’d do so after losing him.

I realise now that I held so much to the hope that he would come back to me, different, but the same. That he’d love me still and I’d finally have it in me to love him whole-heartedly back, to give him everything he gave me.

And now he’s here, and he doesn’t even remember my name. My face, maybe, but not why he was remembering, or why I was significant in the life he led before the horrors of the Capitol.

I used to be glad that he wasn’t alongside me. During the war, during long nights fighting when we’d sleep to the sound of artillery fire and the whistling screech of bombs and wake to a land of craters and corpses, I used to count my blessings that Peeta didn’t have to go through this. I now see that I was foolish to think that. After seeing the videos and reading the reports of what Macar did, nights spent in the trenches seem a welcome prospect.

I see familiar faces at the window of the eatery after an hour. Johanna and Gale, the former of whom forces the latter to stay outside. She ducks through the door and walks towards me, her face tense.

“How is he?” she asks. I almost forgot in all my emotions that Jo must be anxious to hear about Peeta too.

“He’s fine,” I say, my voice hollow-sounding even to my ears. “He’s fine, but he’s different. He’s not the Peeta he was.”

“I expected that.”

“Me too. But this… it’s almost like a different person is wearing his face. It’s him, but it’s wrong.”

Jo sits. Wrings her hands. “He doesn’t remember you?”

“No,” I say, the word getting caught in my throat. “Well, he remembers my face, but not my name. Not _why_ he was remembering. He seemed apprehensive when he asked me who I was.”

Jo nods. “He say anything about anyone else?”

“No.”

“About the Capitol?”

“He laughed about it. Like he thought it was funny. Said they tried to get him to kill me but that it didn’t work. Said he wasn’t going to hurt anyone.”

“Do you believe that?”

I stare at the table between us. It’s made of an old door, sawn in half and sanded smooth. “Yes,” I eventually say, and I know she’s thinking of Peeta’s movements across Panem and the photographs of various Capitol scientists we saw, because I’m thinking of the exact same thing. But I’m also remembering him killing in the arenas, and of the snippets of darkness I saw now and again.

I suppose it was always there, and that his time under Macar has only brought it to the surface.

“We’re going back to Thirteen,” Jo says. “Boggs said they were going to move him there with his doctors.”

I nod. That makes sense. It’s safer there, and they have better facilities even than the ones in the newly-built District 5 hospital. Of course I’m coming too.

“It’ll be alright,” Jo says when I stand. She looks uncomfortable, talking to me like this, but she does it anyway. “He’ll get better, Katniss.”

“I don’t know if he can ever come back,” I say. “I know I wouldn’t.”

“You didn’t have to. You just went through whatever came at you, came out stronger on the other side. And this is Peeta’s version of stronger.”

I blink. I’m not even sure the man I saw in that hospital room was Peeta any longer.

* * *

 

A few days pass, and Dr Murdoch and Dr Wells keep those interested updated on Peeta’s progress. His medical evaluation indicates that he’s in fairly good health, so they quickly move on to psychological tests. Dr Wells promises a report by the end of the week. Since Peeta has no next of kin, no one who could choose what’s best for him if the need came to a must, it’s up to the doctors, and I therefore make it my mission to work as closely with them as I can.

I ask to see him, and I’m glad when the doctors agree. They tell me they plan to let in other people like Johanna and Finnick see him, and have contacted Delly to bring her in to meet him too, since she’s his only surviving childhood friend.

I tie my hair back in its usual braid and throw on some of my most casual clothing. After years in military garb, I feel like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but when I enter Peeta’s private room, I figure I’m not the only one feeling that way. At least, I’m the only one conscious of the fact.

“Hi Katniss,” Peeta says.

“Hi,” I reply. “No cuffs?”

“Yeah,” he says, lifting his hands. “They trust me, apparently.”

I sit down. He smiles at me the way two strangers do when forced to be cordial to one another. He looks tired, though. Pale, a tightness in his shoulders. And with eyes that seem like dark pools despite their vibrant colour.

“How are you?” I ask.

“Good, all things considered. They’ve been prodding and poking me twenty-four seven. I’m starting to wonder if I’m back in the Capitol.”

“You’re not,” I say. “You’ll never have to see any of those people again.”

We lapse into silence. I clear my throat.

“I started remembering some stuff, too,” Peeta tells me. “Been asking them a lot of questions, but they can’t always tell me if it’s real or if I’m just making it up.”

“Well, I’m here,” I say. “Ask me.”

He hesitates, obviously planning his words. I wait, patient, though the silence has the effect of a hand gripping my throat and squeezing.

“Where am I from?” he finally says, and it’s almost a relief. My expression must make him think I need more clarification, because he explains, “I keep remembering things, but it’s not clear. I went to different districts but none of them—none of them felt right. And then I started remembering things from different ones and that only made me more confused.”

“When we won our first Games, we visited the districts. Maybe that’s what you’re remembering,” I say carefully, and he nods, considering. “But you’re from District 12.”

“What was it like?”

There’s no use pretending. “Poor. It was hard. Our industry was coal but there’s a medicine factory there now. It’s better now, after the war.”

“What did I do?”

“You were a baker. Your family owned the district bakery. My father was a miner, but he passed when I was a kid. We didn’t really talk before our Games.”

Peeta nods. He presses his hands flat on the table. “And what happened to my family?”

I bite my lip. I swallow hard. “They… they died, Peeta. I’m sorry.”

“In the war?” he asks. “I heard about all the people that died.”

“At the very beginning, yes,” I say. I’m unsure of where I should tread, suspecting I should err on the side of caution, but not wanting to lie to Peeta, not now. “When the second Games ended, when the rebels took me and the Capitol took you and Johanna, they firebombed Twelve. Only a hundred people got out. They attacked the town first. Your family never had a chance.”

Peeta nods again. He doesn’t look too upset, just disappointed.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says, and then looks up at me as if to confirm the fact.

“Snow wanted to punish me,” I say. “Both of us.”

“That doesn’t mean it was our fault.”

“No.”

“I guess I’d have liked to have seen them. It might have helped me figure out everything in my head.” He scrubs at his temple, frowning.

“I don’t know if they’ve told you yet, but one of your longest friends is flying in to see you,” I say. “She might be able to tell you more about your childhood.”

“Delly Cartwright,” Peeta says. “Yeah, they told me.”

“You remember her?”

“I think so.” He clears his throat. “Is there anyone else from before who’s still alive?”

“No,” I say. “But everyone else here cares about you. Me, Johanna, Gale, Finnick. We’re all here. We all worked to find you.”

“I want to see Johanna,” Peeta says, blinking. “I remember her.”

“Yeah?” I say, fighting the way my voice wants to waver. “That’s good.”

“Is she… is she okay?”

“Jo? She’s doing better. Had a rough start, but she’s had time to recover.”

Peeta nods. “I was worried about her. The last time I saw her… I thought she might not make it. But then they took me and I never saw her again.”

He bows his head, and I twist my fingers together. I don’t know what to say. In the few years since we rescued Johanna, she’s said very little about her time in the Capitol, deflecting whenever she’s asked. She told me, after we’d seen the footage of Peeta in the Nox files, that she’d never been subjected to that kind of torture, but that her experience had been enough.

And what to say to Peeta about his capture? How does one even try to broach something like that?

“I’m sure you two will have a lot to talk about,” I offer.

“Yeah,” Peeta laughs. “We used to talk between our cells. She used to tell me not to let them change me. I didn’t even realise she was gone at first. It was all in my head.”

I can’t help the fractured sound that escapes me. It’s almost a sob, and I try my best to stifle it.

“I don’t mean to upset you,” Peeta says, his hollow smile fading.

“I know,” I say. “I don’t mean to get upset. Nothing happened to me.”

Peeta tilts his head. He eyes me, unpacks me. “I hardly believe that’s true. The way you talk, the way you hold yourself… you’re a survivor.”

I scrub at my eyes with my hands. “So are you.”

Peeta’s eyes grow distant. When he speaks his voice sounds like wind in an empty chamber. “They made me so I didn’t have to survive it,” he says, and a chill rolls down my spine. “There comes a point where you take a person apart so many times that they cease to be a person. And then you can’t hurt them anymore.”

“Peeta…”

His attention snaps back to me, and his eyes blaze, pitch black. “I’m never going to be who you want me to be. And I’m sorry. All I want is answers. I’m tired of everything else.”

I stand and leave, too upset to speak, stumbling out through the doorway and past the doctors, running until I’m alone. I find a closet to hide in like I did when we first got to Thirteen and hear his words spin in my head.

Is that what Peeta thinks he is? Does he believe he’s no longer a person? Where does that leave me, any of us, if he’s no longer the man we spent so much time looking for?

* * *

 

By the end of the week, Johanna and Finnick have both met with Peeta. They both report similar things, though Jo’s experience was markedly different from mine and Finnick’s. Jo is quiet when she returns, and doesn’t say a thing until the next day.

“I’m just glad he’s back,” she murmurs. “That’s more than enough.”

Soon after, the doctors report to Paylor with their findings, who then authorises the information to be shared with those of the squad who wish to hear about Peeta’s state. Every seat is filled, of course. Half the squad had never even met him, but they’ve had three years to learn about who he was from those who had the fortune of spending even a moment with him. I’m worried now. That image seems a far cry from the man who’s emerged the rubble a year after ceasefire.

Beetee works with the two doctors to inform us in terms that we can understand, trying to break down Peeta’s torture, to explain how it resulted in the man sat just a few floors away.

“It’s fear conditioning,” says Beetee. “In its most perfect form. His brain—this _persona_ —it’s how he protects himself.”

“That’s why we’re hesitant to break it,” Dr Wells says. “He’s already been broken down, had his identity stripped away from him. We don’t want to do that again just in the hope of accessing someone who might not even exist anymore.”

“So there’s no reversing it?” asks Boggs.

“No. We all agree that would likely cause more damage,” says Dr Murdoch. “Don’t fix what isn’t broken, since, from a medical standpoint, he’s not broken. He’s displaying all the usual signs of trauma survivors, and he’s explained that he often remember things when presented with locations and people similar to the memory. After his meeting with Miss Mason, he expressed that he remembered more about the Quarter Quell, for example.”

“The ‘old Peeta’ is still there, somewhere,” says Dr Wells. “He’s not trapped, per se, it’s just that he doesn’t know this side of himself in even there. He is what he is, now. The Peeta you expected is like a memory for him. He’s described it as déjà vu.”

“All of this…” says Dr Wells, motioning widely. “Will take time to recover from, if he ever does. It’s just a conditioned response. It’s not him.”

I blink. “No,” I say. “It’s not.”

I look around at the people gathered and catch Jo’s eye. She looks exhausted, curled up in her seat.

“So what are you going to do?” I ask.

“Care for him the best we can. Offer him therapy. Help him reconstruct his identity. There’s not much else.”

“Is he staying in the medic ward?”

“No,” says Dr Murdoch. “He’ll be released sometime next week. It’s our opinion that it’ll be better for him to be around people. And he’s expressed his dislike of his room.”

I put my face in my hands and just breathe, listening to the others question the doctors, and their ensuing reply. I’d first expected to have my Peeta back, and then realised he’d be a different person after being captured, only to be met with this version of him that is like a Peeta from another universe, exactly the same but not quite.

I’ve been romanticising him, still. Even after seeing those Nox videos, I’d romanticised, been hopeful for what would return. But everything has been torn down, now, and I’m back to square one. I can’t expect anything from Peeta. I have no choice but to treat him how I would anyone else. I have to treat him as if he’s a stranger, and pray that one day, he remembers more than my face.

“This is the best outcome we could hope for,” says Beetee, and the doctors nod. “It’s difficult, yes, so bring together this version of him to the one we knew and loved. But he’s alive, he’s here, and that’s more than any of us expected.”


	19. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorty chapter soz

He meets Johanna the day after Katniss Everdeen runs crying from the room.

She’s taller than he remembers, but her hair is still choppy, and her stare still piercing. She steps into the room all confident, but he notes the deservedness, the defensive hunch in her walk.

“Hi Jo,” he says, standing, unsure.

“Hey,” she replies. “How’s things?”

“Good,” he tells her. He offers a smile. “You look better.”

“I am. It’s a wonder what food and fresh air can do.”

His smile widens. Something clicks inside his head, making him remember how her teeth flashed as she wielded an axe in the Training Centre, how she scrubbed blood from her skin when it rained from the sky. He can joke with her about things. She understands, at least a little.

“Imprisonment wasn’t a look that suited either of us, was it?”

“No,” she says, and then they both sit and talk. He’s glad for the practice he’s had with Marta and the others, knowing that if he’d been here right after leaving the city, he’d never have been able to act this way.

He feels almost human when she leaves. They talk through things, she explains how Katniss Everdeen worked herself to the bone to find him, and how surprised they were when he revealed himself to the camera and let himself be found.

“You always liked the attention,” she mused. “I saw it, in the interviews for your first Games. You might not have liked the situation, but you liked to command the room.”

Johanna read him easily, and he senses she’s always been able to do that with him. He has a feeling Katniss Everdeen has had trouble doing so hence, her tears, her pained expression.

He knows he’s upset her, and wishes he hadn’t. He doesn’t know her, exactly, but still, causing her such anguish is not something he wants. Seeing her was a revelation. After months and months of drawing her and not being able to understand, he could feel his mind clearing when she confirmed his name and stepped towards him in that apartment.

With every passing hour things are coming back to him in uncomfortable flashes, memories becoming sharper and sharper until they’re able to cut him as easily as his memories of Macar always have. He can see the space left behind by Peeta Mellark in the lives of these people, and he knows he’ll never be able to fill it.

He meets Finnick next. The man is bronze and warm and makes him feel better.

“Annie told me how you looked after her,” he says after procuring hot drinks from the team of doctors lingering outside, listening and watching. “I used to worry that I’d never be able to thank you for that.”

He shrugs. _Peeta_ shrugs. (Remembering the name is difficult.) “What was he like?” he asks.

Finnick smiles, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. He can sense something in the man, something mournful, and narrows his eyes, trying to remember. Something flickers, deep and dark. The Capitol took this man apart too.

“Peeta was a good man,” Finnick says. “I didn’t get to spend too much time with him that wasn’t training to fight or being in the arena, but I knew he was a good man. Despite everything, he was good.”

He looks away. How strange, to be talking about the man like he’s long dead, even though the shell of him remains in the world of the living.

“I can’t be good,” he says. “I’m going to disappoint a lot of people.”

Finnick wraps his long fingers around his cup. “You don’t have to be who you once were, but don’t think it’s not still there inside you. And trust me, Katniss is just happy that you’re alive. The majority of us had accepted that you were dead.”

He shifts in his seat, uncomfortable. He feels like a parasite, a façade, a shadow masquerading as a man who was once loved, who was missed, who was _looked for_. To listen to people telling him that he was a good man and that this part of him is still within him makes him feel crazy, because all he can hear is the baying of the monster and the voice in his head telling him to run to hide to fight, and that’s not an option any more.

“I upset Katniss Everdeen,” he says. It’s been bugging him, settling itchy and tight between his bones. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Of course you didn’t. But she has so many expectations, and things have changed. We can never go back. It’s going to be hard to fit the past and the present together.”

“She’s not going to like me. None of you will. I’ve done horrible things to survive, Finnick.”

“We all have,” Finnick says. “Trust me, Peeta. You’re not the only person who’s lied or killed in order to survive.”

He feels unstable, but he’s good at hiding it from the doctors, and he finds that the more he does so, the more he answers their questions with neutral, safe sentences, the easier it is to ignore the monster and the voice and start to figure out what he was and what he now is. Having the doctors assigned to his case tell him that he’s ready to leave the hospital and go about living his life makes him want to laugh, because he knows that the moment he steps out of that door, he’s going to have to answer for everything he’s done. It’s going to chase after him—all the people he killed will come to him and he won’t be able to escape.

They assign him a room to stay in until he can decide where he wants to go next, tell him where he can go to get food, how he can access the money saved in his name, and when he needs to visit the psychologist. He sits alone in that room and stares at the wall and holds his backpack to his chest. His whole world used to be inside it, and now it’s exploded, expanding faster than he can fathom.

Something warm inside him starts to glow at knowing that although his family and home are gone, there are people who care about him, but he forces it down, knowing that to get to the truth he’s going to have to be careful who he trusts.

Johanna knocks on his door and tells him to come to dinner with her, and he makes himself get up from the chair and follow her to a dining hall. It’s late, so it’s pretty empty but for a scattering of people. They sit at a table alone, and a few minutes pass before he notices Katniss and Finnick and some others at another table across the hall.

“Go sit with your friends,” he says to Johanna.

“I already am,” she replies. He looks over her shoulder at the others. Katniss is sat next to a tall bearded man who eyes Peeta with suspicion, though it feels well-placed and familiar for some reason. Finnick is beside a red-head—Annie—and seeing her smiling and happy makes him feel relaxed. Her screams always were the loudest.

Katniss doesn’t turn around, though, sat small and hunched on the bench.

A few days after that he goes to see some of the higher-ranking military personnel who were involved in investigating Capitol loyalists, and by extension, Macar. They ask him what he knows and he gives them everything he remembers. By their expressions when he finishes talking, they hadn’t expected him to recall things in such detail, to pinpoint where he was held and for how long. But to him it’s almost therapeutic, to describe how it felt for electricity to turn his brain to mush.

And then they ask him about his activities after leaving the Capitol, and he gets up and tries to leave. Jackson, a stern woman who flinches at nothing, tells him he’s not in danger of execution or persecution, but he saw how her hand shot down to the gun at her hip before leaving, and how the others in the room look ready to apprehend him.

So he gives them the book. He tells them that it helped him but that he couldn’t finish, that he found a new objective.

“Thank you, Mr Mellark,” says Jackson. “We’ve struggled to locate existing allies of the Capitol—what you’ve told us today is invaluable.”

He nods, distantly glad that he can help these people, but he knows it’s only a matter of time before they slap handcuffs on him and bring him in front of an unforgiving jury, or just shoot him at point-blank range.

He knows what they’re thinking. The way they look at him says it all. He’s a ghost, an in-between person. A relic of the past brought into the future.

Jackson walks him out of the Command centre. She doesn’t seem afraid of him, or disappointed, which he likes.

“Did she really want to find me?” he asks when they near the end of the corridor.

“Yes,” Jackson says, not needing any clarification. “They all did. But she believed you were alive longer than anyone else.”

She bows her head to him and wishes him well, and then strides away down the hallway, leaving him alone. The two guards at the door are watching him, and he wonders if they see Peeta Mellark, or if they see something else.


	20. Katniss

Seeing Peeta out and about as I move through District 13 is upsetting, but I have to get used to it. I force myself to make eye contact with him when he passes, but there’s always some dissonance there, a pause as he makes the connection as to who I am and who he is and why I’d look his way in the first place.

I even see him talking to Gale. It’s a tenuous thing between them; Gale, still well-aware of the anger and jealousy he once felt so strongly, struggles to decide how to feel now that Peeta has returned a shadow of the man he once was. Is it fair to punish someone for something they don’t remember? That he doesn’t really remember me makes things difficult too. I made it clear long ago that even if Peeta was never found, Gale and I could never be more than uncomfortable friends, though I know feelings linger on.

“You alright?” I ask one afternoon, jogging to catch up with him as he walks away from the gun range. “I saw you talking to Peeta.”

“I’m fine,” he says, faintly defensive.

“What did you talk about?” I ask.

“He introduced himself to me, then apologised when he saw that I already knew him, and then asked me to explain who I was. He said he remembered something but wasn’t sure if it was me or not.”

“Oh,” I say.

Gale’s eyes flicker away, restless. “It was really weird, Katniss.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know what I should and shouldn’t say. I don’t want to cause any… upset, though I’m not sure he’s the kind of guy who’d feel upset about anything anymore.”

“I wish I could tell you what to do,” I mumble.

“Are you going to be okay?” he asks, looking down at me. For a moment I could imagine we were back in the woods surrounding District 12, two frightened kids.

“Yes,” I say, and I know he believes that as little as I do.

* * *

 

Haymitch arrives for a visit a little while later. I watch his hovercraft come in to land and he hugs me tightly on the runway.

“Effie wishes she could come,” he tells, voice loud in my ear. I nod, understanding that she’s not permitted to travel to Thirteen. Haymitch steps back, a hand on my shoulder. “He’s back, huh?”

“He’s back,” I say, going for overjoyed but failing miserably. He’s back, sure, but not how I wanted him to be.

This point is only proved when we head further into Thirteen and bump into some of the others—Johanna, Finnick, and Peeta. They’re in the mess hall, and Jo and Finn jump to their feet to greet Haymitch. It’s been a long time since any of us last saw him, and I know the three of them especially became close during the long years they spent as mentors.

After they’ve hugged and exchanged conversation, they stop, Finnick stepping aside to reveal Peeta, still sat on one of the metal benches, watching everything unfold. Haymitch clears his throat.

“Peeta,” he says.

There’s a tangible intake of breath, a waiting for Peeta to ask who Haymitch is. But he stands, wiping his palms on his pants, and walks over.

“Haymitch,” he says, shaking the older man’s hand. “I remember you. And I’ve seen you in videos from the Games.”

Haymitch nods. I can tell he’s getting a little choked up. Whether he wants to admit it or not, Peeta was like—is like, I suppose—a son to him. And I know that moving to District Four with Effie was partly so he could get away from everything that reminded him of how he’d failed the boy, including me.

“It’s good to see you,” Haymitch says. Peeta nods.

“Yeah.”

“I’d appreciate a walk with you, if you have time. So we can catch up.”

Peeta nods again. “Okay.”

Haymitch looks over to me. I can see that he’s surprised to say the least, at how different Peeta is now. He raises his eyebrows, rubbing his hands together, and walks over to me.

“Come on, kid,” he says. “We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

* * *

 

We walk a little way out from Thirteen, along the streets they’ve cleared and built on, finding a quiet spot to sit and talk.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he says, staring out at the landscape sprawling into the horizon. Due south is District 12, hidden amidst the trees.

“I don’t want any more apologies,” I say. “People keep saying their sorry and it’s making me feel worse. I know it’s not what I wanted or expected, but I have no other choice.”

Haymitch grumbles and I turn to him.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and he gives me a look. I roll my eyes. “I shouldn’t have a go at you,” I amend. “It’s just… the past two weeks have sucked. And I didn’t think they would.”

“But he’s alive.”

“Yeah,” I say, but my agreement is ashy on my tongue.

We sit in silence. There’s so much to say but neither of us know how to do it, and I think we both fear that once we begin airing our grievances neither will be able to stop.

But eventually Haymitch scrubs at his eyes and sighs.

“You know, a while back, in Four, Effie and I were walking along the beach. It was late, the beach was empty. Eff spotted someone lying on the sand a little way down and we both thought it was strange. I thought someone had washed ashore for a moment, but then the person sat up and ran off.” Haymitch looks down at his hands. “At the time I thought it was the boy. But it was dark and the person was far away and I figured I was just seeing things. I’m sorry I never mentioned it to you.”

I shrug. “It doesn’t matter. You didn’t think he was alive. And I was probably in the same district as him at some point and just didn’t know.”

“He didn’t know either. All this time, and no one knew.”

I feel my bottom lip beginning to tremble, tears welling, and close my eyes to try and compose myself, but I can’t help the choked gasp that escapes me.

“He’s taken everything from me,” I sob, the pain in my chest finally breaking over, flooding through me. I’m as surprised by it as Haymitch, who can only rub my back.

“Who did?” he asks.

“Snow. He’s been dead three years and still… still he takes and takes and takes. My family, my home, and now Peeta’s back but he’s _not_.” I gasp for breath, my chest tightening. “He’s not, Haymitch. He’s not the same. He’s never going to love me again.”

“Maybe he won’t,” Haymitch eventually replies. “Maybe after everything he’s endured, he’ll never be the man he was. And maybe that includes how he felt about you. But of what I’ve seen today, I think he’s still there. A little warped, perhaps, but he’s still there. Peeta’s still there, Katniss.”

I close my eyes and take a steadying breath.

“You’ve both changed, whether you like it or not. And yes, what happened to him was horrific, but what happened to you was horrific too. But you both made it. And you’re stronger people because of it.”

I nod, but the words don’t give me much comfort, not at the moment. “I don’t know if I can do it,” I mumble. “If he… if he only wants to be a friend. What if he finds someone else? I can’t do that.”

“If that happens, you’ll overcome it.”

“Not this,” I say, shaking my head. “Not this.”

* * *

 

Waving Haymitch off is difficult. As we wait for him to be cleared to board the hovercraft, I ask him what he talk about with Peeta after getting back from our little gander, but he doesn’t tell me.

“I’m not taking any words from him, not anymore,” he says. “The boy’s been through enough. He deserves to be able to talk to you directly, as do you.”

After, I hide in my room, sat on the floor between my bed and the wall, staring at the trinkets I’ve gathered over the years. The pin, the pearl, the locket. I listen to the hum of the air systems and watch the light flickering on the other side of the curtains. I bury my face in my knees and try not to think.

_Three years, and now this?_

I suppose I should be grateful. Peeta’s alive, and he’s getting the help he needs. He survived the war like we all did, though I’ve come to understand that his war was so very different from mine. I promised to protect him, and I failed. He has no duties now, no obligations towards me, and once, I would’ve been glad. I would’ve considered it fortunate to have him as nothing more than a figure in my peripheral. And now? Now I’d give anything to be dancing with him again, knowing that despite everything I was willing to die for him, and that he was ready to do the same.

I can’t figure out what to do. This Peeta is so different. Threads of familiarly still show through but the tapestry has been irrevocably changed.

A large part of me begs to ask him what he remembers, to interrogate him and root out all the lies and the shadows that have been embedded in his psyche, anything to establish who really came back from the dead. But I also know that this isn’t the real him, and it never will be. That person seems lost to time and smoke. I can hope for recovery, but based on what we know, it’s a miracle he’s even alive.

“He might have come back, but he’s wrong,” I murmur into my food late one night. Jo is sat opposite, knees up to her chest. We both have these quiet periods, when we want no company or just each other’s. We’ve grown closer over the years.

“It’s the price you pay for resurrection,” she replies, her eyes wide, distant. “I was talking to him, you know. We all wanted to. Even people who’d never met him. They wanted to meet him. And he has no idea why. He didn’t realise it was me in the cell next to his until I told him.”

Trying to shift this grey weight off my shoulders is thus a difficult task. With everyone else so flummoxed by it all, there’s little help. I toss and I turn, I bury myself into rebuilding tasks, I spend time with friends, I pour over endless files until images of Peeta on operating tables and graphs of the chemicals they pumped into him spin behind my closed eyes.

And none of it helps.

What would help would be Peeta. I need the old him by my side. I’d give anything for him to be here. But seeing him now, the one I knew seems like a child, a faint nostalgia, a ghost. I used to think he was a survivor, but that’s nothing compared to now. There is no word beyond survivor.

But one day I’m sat in an empty meeting room, simply needing a moment of quiet to myself, and there’s a knock at the door. I stand as the door opens, an apology on my lips for not checking if the room was needed, and then the words die.

“Peeta,” I say. “Hi.”

He stands in the doorway. “Hi,” he echoes. “Can I… can I come in?”

I nod, sitting back down. My heart races. I watch him close the door behind him and take a seat one down from mine. It’s perhaps the closest we’ve been in three years.

“How are you?” I ask.

“Better,” he says, picking at his hand.

He’s right. He lookers better by each passing day, gaining weight, sleeping more, eating well. He’s had his hair cut, shorter than I’ve ever seen it, militaristic and matching the grey and blue outfits he’s always in. Despite it all, his eyes are still bottomless, like wells, black at the bottom. It hurts to look.

He doesn’t ask me how I am, focusing on his hand, so I wait. Eventually he clears his throat.

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he says. Even his voice seems deeper, now. Both adrift and heavily anchored in his chest.

“Why?” I ask, furrowing my brow.

“Because I know you wanted me to come back, but I’m different to what I was. And that’s disappointing.”

“I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Yeah. But I’m not the same.”

I look away. I can’t do this. I thought that maybe I could. But I can’t.

“We’ve all changed,” I whisper.

“It’s not the same as what happened to me, though, is it?”

“No. You’re right.”

He nods. I nod. We fall silent.

“I’ve been… remembering things,” he says. “I’ve been remembering things for a long while but none of it ever made much sense. I was just confused. But I kept drawing you, so.”

“You were an amazing artist,” I offer. “I have some of your old sketches, actually.”

He presses his lips into a line. “In therapy they’ve been helping me sort things out into real and not real. But it’s hard. They don’t know everything that happened. They weren’t there. You were so you know.”

“I’d be happy to help you.”

“Okay.”

“Did you have a good chat with Haymitch?”

Something flashes across his face. “Yeah,” he says, picking at a loose thread in his pants. “I had almost forgotten him. And how much he did for me. I think he was disappointed with me.”

“You haven’t done anything wrong.”

He makes a non-committal humming sound.

I push my hair back from my face. “Peeta. I don’t want you to feel guilty, or pressured into being something just because it’s how others remember you being. That’s not fair. I’ll always help you. I’ll answer your questions.”

He nods.

“You’ll get bored of listening to me eventually,” he says, a bitter humour cracking in his voice.

“I won’t,” I reply. “I promise you, I won’t.”

* * *

 

Life hurtles on whether I’m ready for it or not. With Peeta back, I was granted some time off to deal with it all, but I’m a key part of Jackson’s team and have responsibilities that need tending to. So bright and early one miserably cold morning, I head to command for a meeting.

Everyone is there, and Jackson gives us a low down on what we’ve missed, on raids on Capitol cells.

“The book obtained from Mr Mellark has been invaluable,” she says. “Of course, he has reduce the list considerably by himself, but the information he gathered is more than we ever dreamed of having.”

I look at the map of Panem, at the little markers for confirmed Capitolites and cells that have been located or destroyed. Over half at the work of Peeta.

“So I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that Squad 451 are needed back in the field. Recon and attack on a suspected base. Loyalists trying to build weapons,” Jackson explains. “I’ll be sending all of you since it’s a dangerous spot and poorly mapped. A clearer mission file will be made available in the next forty-eight hours for you to study.”

She ends the meeting soon after, but asks me to stay.

“There’s been a request,” she says, taking a seat. “I thought it best to run it by you first.”

I narrow my eyes. “A request? By who?”

“Peeta,” she says, and I feel my body tense, a spring about to release. “He’s told us that he wants to help with rooting out Capitol cells.”

“He’s not ready for that,” I say. “He’s just barely come back, and he’s hardly healthy yet. He’s in therapy.” I lower my voice, as if he’d somehow overhear, because deep down the thought of him holding a gun or a knife scares me a little, since the look in his eyes now is the same look he got when he killed Brutus. “He’s not cleared to be near weapons.”

“He will of course be required to pass a series of checks before hand, to prove he can handle it,” Jackson says. “But he went over all our heads, asked the President directly, and if she allows it, there’s little we can do to halt it.”

I shake my head. “This is madness.”

“He specifically requested to join this squad.”

“He’s too close to the mission.”

“You think _he’s_ too personal?” Jackson asks. “Needn’t I remind you of your personal vendetta and how it’s fuelled you for the past three years?”

“This is entirely different. _He’s_ entirely different! It wouldn’t be safe for him or us.”

“Early psychological evaluations show he’s cleared. He’s not the same person, but he’s not insane. By medical and military standards, he’s an excellent candidate. Our only concerns are that there will be conflicts between him and you.”

I lift my chin. “Jackson, you can’t—”

“Can’t put this on you?” she asks. “Miss Everdeen, like it or not, you are a vital part of this squad. But I’m in charge, here. I have to protect all of you. And if there is conflict between you and Peeta that will put anyone in danger, I’m at liberty to pull both of you from the field.”

I drum my fingers against the table. I have no choice, here. I just have to trust myself, my squad. I have to trust Peeta, no matter the version of himself that has returned to me.

Jackson waits, lets me think, but I know the truth. I have little say in the matter of Peeta joining the squad, really. My own personal history with him is largely on me, now. He doesn’t recall any of it, it seems, so it can’t trip him up. I’m the one wrapped up in a past that doesn’t even exist to him.

I agree, tell Jackson to do what’s best for the team. Days later, when news gets out that Peeta has passed his physical and mental fitness tests and is being sent on to combatant evaluation, I hole up in my room, needing a minute to process.

It’s just so difficult, to disconnect what I used to know with the person in the present. And though I know I’m not alone in this, it’s much more personal to me. I was the one to have been connected to him for so many years. I’m the one to fight alongside him. I’m the one who begged Haymitch to let him live. And now… I refuse to believe it’s a moot point.

Late that night I go to ballistics in search of Boggs.

“He excelled in both hand-to-hand and weaponry tests,” he tells me, looking over the data collected by Peeta’s examiners. “A remnant of previous training, it seems.”

I nod. “He wrestled, and then there was the Games. He had time and reason to learn some things.”

Boggs furrows his brow, splaying his hand over the data. He points, and I follow, taking in the numbers.

“He’s hit almost every target,” I observe, something cold running through me. When did Peeta ever need to use a gun?

“He’s well-trained,” Boggs muses. “They put that in him, or at the very least brought out what was already there.”

And that paralyses me. Because the idea of this new Peeta being something—someone—who has existed in _my_ Peeta—the old Peeta—for all this time scares me so much I can barely think. All it needed was to be uncovered, brought out into sharper clarity. I should have been able to recognise it.

I recall his kindness; the bread, Foxface, the morphling on the beach. And then I recall his might; Cato, Brutus, and later, his spree across Panem.

Was I blinded by his smile, by his soft touch and warm words? Or was he truly skilled at hiding the darkness that always resided within him? And how deep must it have been buried, for it to have taken so much to draw it out?

I barely sleep that night, tossing and turning, dreaming of the war. Those years that dragged by, days and nights of gunfire, smoke, and ash. And the constant, _constant_ , search for Peeta. I travelled Panem as it crumbled around me, looking for him. I dreamed of his return, of being reunited. I dreamed of never letting him out of my sight ever again.

I never dreamed of this. I never thought I’d be wary around him, be uncertain of how to act, of how he’s going to act. He’s another person, yes, but so am. The difference is that my change has been weathered, gradual. It’s grown within me. But Peeta—he’s been torn apart and put back together, and I’m not certain that some things haven’t been lost.

It’s almost like I’ve stumbled into an alternate reality. My memories of my world, my history, trail behind me like a train, catching on brambles, tripping me up. All the while it’s invisible, all in my head. To everyone else I look like I’m losing my mind.

Is that what Peeta thinks of me? Does he see a plain, hollow girl and wonder why everyone has told him he once wished to die for her? He must want to laugh at the idea. And that’s what truly guts me. That I was too late. That I had something good and let it slip away, and now I have it back, but I don’t.

I think of the last thing I told Peeta. My last sight of him was as I retreated into the jungle and I promised him I would come back, that we would see each other again. That promise has been fulfilled in some sense, but he doesn’t see me now. He doesn’t see anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out my pinterest page for the board i created for this fic @saturnblushes


	21. Peeta

When he saw Haymitch Abernathy, victor of the 50th Games, the second Quarter Quell, mentor of the girl formally known as _the Mockingjay_ , plus her sidekick—him—he didn’t know what to think. The others cleared loved him, saw him as a dear friend, and he thought through the videos he’d seen of Haymitch fighting to save that blonde girl from his district, using the arena to his advantage to win his Games just a day later, and then of him serving as a mentor for countless slain children.

When he got to the footage of Haymitch mentoring himself and Katniss Everdeen, all those years ago, things had already started to come back to him in sharper and sharper clarity, until he knew the man had cared for him deeply, and that he had cared right back.

He’d been apprehensive walking off with the man, though, away from the others. Not because he felt physically threatened; he was bulky and an experienced fighter and had youth on his side, whereas Haymitch had the tremor of an alcoholic and looked weak for a man just barely middle-aged.

He’d felt nervous, really. Not threatened. Nervous about what he would be asked, what he wouldn’t be able to answer, and about what Haymitch would be able to tell him.

They’d sat in a quiet corner and just chatted. Haymitch told him all about District Four and his wife, Effie, about how things had changed, about how they’d looked for him but that he had to admit that he’d assumed Peeta was dead, even if Katniss had never given up.

“That’s okay,” he says. “You’re smart.”

“So is she,” Haymitch remarks. “A different kind of smart.”

Naturally the conversation flowed into the direction of the girl, now young woman, who connected them both. He found he remembered a lot, more than he was conscious of. It helped having Haymitch there to dislodge things from an outside perspective.

“I don’t think you realise how much you mean to her,” Haymitch says gruffly. Peeta feels a frown rolling over his face, tugging his eyebrows together.

“People keep saying that. And I know we did a lot of things and survived a lot of things together but I don’t always know exactly what to do with it. I don’t know how I feel. About her. About a lot of things.”

“Well she’s willing to help you figure it all out. We all are. But Katniss should be your first port of call. She knows you better than anyone.” Haymitch wipes his nose with a handkerchief. “I remember how much you loved her. Everyone could see it.”

“Could they?”

Haymitch smiles. “Yes. You were never particularly subtle.”

“And now I don’t remember everything.”

“Unfortunately. But you’re back. And in the end, that’s what she wanted. She just wanted you back.”

“I don’t understand. I _am_ back. But she doesn’t seem happy.”

Haymitch sighs, scrubbing his face with his hand. Then he angles his body to face Peeta more fully, pale eyes watery, heavily shadowed with a lack of sleep.

“She only realised how much she loved you when you were gone. And then the rescue op failed, and the war went on with no sight of you. Not even a whisper, and we had ears and eyes everywhere. Katniss kept looking even when people told her you were dead. I tried to convince her myself, at first, but she refused. Said you’d have done the same for her.”

It’s dazzling information, and he can feel himself beginning to spiral.

“I wasn’t there when they figured out you were alive. But I know that she finally thought she’d have the chance to tell you how she felt. And then, well…”

“I came back.”

“Yes. This was… unexpected.”

“The doctors said they thought I might have memory issues. They handcuffed me and wouldn’t let me near her. They said I was aggressive.”

“What they had found out about Macar and Project Nox led them to believe that you would try and kill her, yes. They thought you’d have some cognitive problems, but not to this extent.”

“I wasn’t expecting it either,” he says, and Haymitch’s laugh is chesty, rolling into hacking coughs. Peeta smacks him on the back.

“You’re not totally different, kid,” Haymitch says, eyes gleaming.

“I just can’t be fixed.” Haymitch’s smile fades immediately, and Peeta knows to ease any sense of guilt his old mentor is feeling. “It’s okay. I have help, now.”

“And you’re back where you belong, where people care about you.”

“Even if I don’t reciprocate with her.”

“I wasn’t just talking about Katniss, but yes. Now your places have switched.”

“Yes.”

“She won’t say it, but she’s worried. She has to bring together the Peeta she knew with you now, and it’s hard. You understand.”

“I’d never hurt her. I don’t want to hurt people anymore.”

“I know that. So does she. All she cares about is that she messed up the first time, and that perhaps her second chance won’t be everything she hoped it would be.”

* * *

 

Peeta’s happy to be on the squad with the others. He’s become friends—or, rather, reconnected with, if he’s to believe what everyone is telling him—Johanna, Finnick, and Gale, and works well with Boggs, and feels he’s ready to finish what he started. To help the people who have treated him so much better than he ever hoped.

He’s pleased to pass his physical and mental tests. He smiles pleasantly at the psychologist, and is honest to some degree. He can’t tell them everyone, of course not, but he tells them what he knows will please them. It won’t do any damage. He’s in control of himself, now. He has friends, now. And the monster has stayed still and quiet for so long he’s hoping it’ll die out completely.

Then comes the combat evaluation. He’s taken to an empty training hall, but he sees Gale, Johanna, and a handful of young personnel on a balcony, watching him intently. The younger recruits must see him as a zoo animal. As a corpse walking the earth. They must think he’s some kind of ghost story.

Do they share his tale over campfires, he wonders. Is he a tall tale, a warning? If he wandered through a military camp at night, would people think he were a harbinger of death?

“Mr Mellark?” asks the trainer evaluating him. She’s a middle-aged woman, muscular, long hair tied back. She doesn’t seem afraid. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” Peeta says, and then the tests begin.

First, close-combat. He’s pitted against a towering man who has a slice of fear in his eyes, who is a heavy hitter but slow to move. He fights him easily, and the moves come to him with ease, ingrained, natural. A jab of the elbow, a swipe of the leg, and a wrenching down of the body from the neck. He holds the man in a lock, pulling his chin back, and looks up at the trainer.

“Good,” she says, and he lets go. He offers the man a hand up, which he takes.

“Thanks.”

He nods. Smiles. Shakes out his hand, ignoring the fluttering feeling in his tendons, and the vague misty memories in his head of fighting in a kitchen, in a bedroom, on a stairway, with other blond boys just like himself.

He’s tested with knives, too, and an axe. He holds the blade up to Johanna, who whistles and smiles, and then throws it as hard as he can at the target, satisfaction rolling through him at the sound of the plastic cracking.

They try him with a bow and arrow, too, a militarised one of metal and wire, but he shakes his head. In the scrambled mess of his brain, he know that’s not his weapon.

So they go on to guns. He disassembles and assembles a rifle in thirty seconds, feeling the smooth, cold surface of the barrel, the gleam, strokes his fingers over it, feeling the balance. He shoots lying down, adjusting the stand until he’s certain it’s right, aiming and lighting pressing his finger down to release a stream of bullets. What he lacks in pinpoint accuracy, he makes up for with sheer determination. Then, he stands, shoots at moving objects while stationary, at stationary objects while in motion. Point, breathe, squeeze the trigger. Easy.

He tries a handgun, too, even though it reminds him of the soldier in the city, of the young man in Two, the old man in Four. He shoots and misses a few times, and that makes him angry, stepping forward until the target splits in two, multiple bullet holes joining up.

When the firing stops, the sound rings through the space. He looks to the trainer, who looks pleased. He hears slow clapping, and on the balcony, Finnick has arrived.

“Bravo!” he calls, with the cadence of a ringmaster.

He joins them in a smaller training facility, and runs on the treadmill with Johanna. He wants to ask where the girl is, where Katniss is, but the words fail to form in his mouth.

“She’s not entirely comfortable with you being on the squad,” says Gale, surprising him. He didn’t think he was being obvious, but perhaps the others can read him in a way that he couldn’t understand. He lost so much time, but they didn’t. They know him more than he could ever know himself.

“Why?” he asks, wiping his forehead with the towel. Sometimes he feels entirely outside of his body, like his thoughts are floating up somewhere near the air ducts, and his body is just on autopilot, doing normal human body things, like sweating. He tries to return whenever he notices.

There’s a pause. Gale is good with telling the truth, but only sometimes.

“I’m not going to kill her,” he says, and Gale’s eyes do a strange thing where they flash and grow dark at the same time. “I’m not,” he says again, a piece of laughter clinging on to his words. He clears his throat, becomes serious. “I won’t.”

* * *

 

In the showers after, Finnick is loud, singing into his bar of soap. It makes Peeta smile, makes the others laugh. His mind, for a moment, is quiet. Under the hot running water, he can breathe.

He wraps a towel around his hips once he’s done and steps out of the cubicle to grab his clothes from the bench, and Finnick stops singing. He looks up, sees them staring at him, at his body, at the marks there.

“Pretty gross, huh?” he says, and they clear their throats, avert their eyes before looking again. Finnick puts his towel over his head to dry his hair. Gale looks conflicted. Peeta runs his hand over his stomach. They have scars, too. Gale’s back is a web of hazy pink and silver lines, crisscrossing. They’ve all bled.

“This—” Peeta says, twisting and pointing at a whorl of scar tissue at his hip. “This is from when they thought they were gonna replace my hip as well. Fucked it up though, I kept waking up.”

He laughs, the sound like gravel, and no one else joins in.

He pulls a shirt over his head, then underwear, pants, boots. Scrubs his short hair, half-expecting the towel to come away covered in dye.

But it doesn’t. And his eyes stay the same, and his reflection doesn’t flicker or begin to melt at the edges. He stared and Peeta Mellark—he stares back. He is Peeta, here in this strange place, with people who cared about him and still do, for some reason. They know what he’s done, know who he’s killed and how he killed them and what he let those doctors to do him for years in the city and yet they still want to help him? They still want to work alongside him? They must be idiots! God! How can they all be so—

“Hey, Peet, you coming?” asks Finnick, and Peeta looks over. Finnick is stood by the door, hair sticking up because it’s still damp. He’s the only one left, now. Peeta didn’t even realise everyone else had filed out.

“Yes,” he replies, which makes the distilled look on Finnick’s face go away. “Yes, I’m coming.”


	22. Katniss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> longer chap than usual, i think the longest in this whole mess

Peeta joins the team. I’m expecting it, I’ve been forewarned, but walking into Comms and seeing him sat beside Finnick is jarring to say the least. We sit, discuss the missions, and then are dismissed for patrol work. I partner off with Mitchell as soon as I can, knowing he won’t ask and that we can chat about meaningless things all day instead of the more pressing matters in our lives.

I manage to spend the rest of the week barely talking to Peeta, barely having to interact with him. I training in the early morning to avoid him, wedge myself between my squad mates so he can’t get close, and don’t look him in the eye.

In the gym, I see him lifting weights, see him beating all the others with the bulky strength he’s always had, and run faster, harder. At night, I double-check the lock on my room, and toss and turn for hours. During patrols and command meetings I put all my energy into the task of destroying every last thread of Capitol rule.

I could deal with it, at least, when he wasn’t on the team. When he was a little more distant. But now he’s everywhere I am, and though it’s what I want, deep down, it’s the fulfilment of every dream I’ve had since I left him in the arena, I didn’t want it to be like this.

I suppose I should’ve known long ago, that my dream would never be reality, but I held on like a child because I was scared and surrounded by bloodshed and just wanted something warm and soft and good. The dust and dirt and grime of three years of war and recovery has seeped into this dream, though. I kept sweeping it away, into corners, hoping it wouldn’t block out the sun, corrode the edges of that little mental paradise, but I could only do so much.

So I tell all the others that it’s fine. That I’m okay. Because it is. I’m not a baby. I have to accept Peeta on our team. After all, he’s an essential part of it, and always was, really. His intel is invaluable, and just because I can’t fully reconcile him with the man I knew before, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be able to get on with his new life.

Still, the day arrives of our first mission involving Peeta. He’s been placed in a standard combat role, though I know from the others that he’ll serve as a frontline marksman if the situation calls for it. We head out before dawn, flying to a location not far from the Capitol in the dead zone between it and what used to be the northern boundary of District 2.

“An old military base, most likely abandoned, but its location makes it of interest. Recon the site, we shouldn’t need to engage, though getting data is important. They’re going to map the area and we need to be sure it’s sound,” says Jackson, before signing us off.

It’s a simple mission. An easy one. Should be a quick in and out approach, allowing the Leegs to scan the site for our holos. The only difference from any standard op is that we have one new member.

I sit with Peeta out of my sight on the hovercraft, and stare out of the window to watch the sun rising as the hovercraft chases the night. At one point I fall asleep, and am awoken when the hovercraft shudders, and a warning light paints the cabin red.

“We’re being shot at,” says Mitchell, sounding both disbelieving and amused over the tannoy. “Either they can’t see our logo or they’re the dumbest Capitol allies I’ve ever seen.”

Boggs is on his feet right away. “Can we confirm they’re the enemy?” he asks, as the hovercraft tilts slightly, scudding through the air to get out of range.

“Pretty sure, boss,” replies Leeg 2. “Command recommends offensive response.”

Boggs nods. “Homes,” he says, and Homes stands from his seat to locate a gun. He’s the obvious choice here, for retaliation not only from a distance, but from a moving vehicle. We assume he’ll also pick Gale, or Leeg 1, but then he looks across the galley. “Mellark, you too,” he says.

Something rolls through the cabin as Peeta stands. I watch him walk the way Homes did, exchanging a look with Jo.

“He’s not Homes, but he’s good,” she tells me, hands loosely gripping the armrests of her seat.

The hovercraft returns to the sight of the gunfire, and the ramp deploys, sending air rushing into the cabin. Homes and Peeta, secured with guidelines, walk down the ramp like they’re not way up in the air, guns in hand, and begin to return fire. The sound is half-muffled by the engines, but it’s clear as day that the two men are well-versed with ballistic weapons. Homes is precise, not wasting a single bullet. Peeta is loud and hits his target after two or three shots.

Peeta never was a good shot. And while he isn’t fantastic now—they couldn’t beat that into him, it seems—but he’s determined. It’s like he’s well aware that he’ll miss his target, so he empties a cartridge into whatever he’s aiming at to get a hit.

It’s horrifying, watching him fire. Watching him kill, not so much. I saw him killing Brutus in a fit of rage, fighting Cato and letting him fall to the mutts, and then saw the aftermath of his spree through the districts. He’s not immune from killing, and neither am I.

“Target secured,” Boggs says, and the hovercraft surges forward. Peeta and Homes walk back into the interior, the ramp rising again. When the door is fully closed, hissing and locking, a humming silence fills the cabin, broken only by the sound of the guns being set in racks, the beeps of the pilots.

“Told you,” Jo says, seeming to take my silence for surprise.

Honestly, I don’t know how I feel. Horror, shock, and the heavy acceptance that I knew this all along. We’re all creatures capable of inhuman acts of violence. Peeta is no different.

“Fifteen to touchdown,” says Mitchell after Homes and Peeta return to their seats. I drop my head back in my own and try to zone out.

I’m on a mission. I have a task. I have to prove that I am not going to let the squad down just because I’m hung up on a ghost.

* * *

 

We land a mile from the building, having to walk the rest of the scrubby, rocky terrain. It’s quiet, hiking through dense pines and sparse spruce, knowing that for at least as long as Panem existed, few, if any people set foot in this place. It was the wilds, the dead zone, the place between borders that both did and did not exist.

Finally we reach gravel roads and follow them through uneven land, until we reach a stone wall covered in moss and stretching into the distance, a steel plated gate blocking our path.

“Fancy,” says Jo, strumming her fingers against the metal to hear it twang. “You’d think it was someone’s house, not a facility.

“We still don’t know that it wasn’t both,” Boggs says, as the Leegs break down the locking mechanism, making the gates swing open. We’re presented with a driveway, overgrown now, with scraggly grass lawns stretching into the distance, fading into the pine haze beyond the wall. And at the end of the gravel, the facility. We walk towards it until we’re at the steps.

It’s all quiet for a moment, all of us curious, wary, looking up at the nondescript single-story building that sits both in the city and outside of it. The weathered Capitol emblem sits above the main entrance. It almost reminds me of the Justice Building back in Twelve, if only double in size. It’s still a squat building, though, grey and hunkered down against the earth.

“I know this place,” Peeta says, then, and we all look at him. I feel something cold spiral through my stomach at the look on his face, so distant and so close at once, a strange distortion of something remembered and something that never happened.

The quiet among us is different, now. He spoke and the words made the silence heavy, weary. We look up at the building and it looks back at us, small little humans.

Gale and Finnick reload their guns, Leeg 1 peers through her scope. Restless movements of people expecting a fight.

Jackson had said the place had been abandoned, possibly for decades, but clearly that intel was wrong. I can only hope that we’ll find no one here.

“Come on,” Boggs says, brow furrowed. “Clear the building, and then we’re out of here.”

We walk into the building, and to my surprise Peeta doesn’t hesitate much. I see Finnick murmur to him, asking if he’s alright, and Peeta’s shrugged nod is both a reassurance and a horror to behold. What must he be feeling? Thinking? Is he indifferent but inside in turmoil? Or is the worst of it that he can’t recall exactly why he recognises the place, why he feels dissonance, but can sense that this place remembers him.

Gale and I lead the pack, guns up, torches blazing through dusty air. Nondescript corridors and rooms, blocky, functional, military. Like District 13 but above ground. No lights, the power having been shut off long ago, the air stuffy and stale, but holding onto lingering notes of bleach. The group splits into two, each with a Leeg twin holding a holo mapper. The device beeps, sending out lasers to map the dimensions of the space. We find it empty, and no heat signatures are detected.

If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought it was indeed a building long-since forgotten. The dust is thick and undisturbed, forcing us to cover our noses and mouths, though I know this to be the result of the war and the thick clouds of ash and grit that spread across the districts. Time has sped up here, but if Peeta is correct in remembering the place, it can’t have been more than a few years since it was last in use, at least to some degree.

My half of the squad turns back when we reach the edges of the building, finding nothing, the holo scan complete.

“Gross,” says Jo, poking at a fungus growing in the corner of a window with the butt of her knife.

“What do you think this place was?” asks Mitchell, shining his torch over the doors. All the rooms are bare, containing the odd bed frame or shelf or overturned chair. Signs of life, once.

“A hospice, a home, a school. I can’t be sure,” Boggs says. With Peeta on the other team we won’t know for certain. “There were no records of it, at least not that we can find. A flyover team spotted it a little while back.”

As if the property can get any more eerie, its apparent lack of purpose makes it all the more unsettling. A place beyond the known. All the people who once worked here may now be dead. We may never find out the true condition of this building’s existence.

We meet the other team, who have found an access route to the basement that needs mapping. Boggs accompanies Finnick, Mitchell, Homes and the Leegs, telling us to keep looking around for anything of interest.

So now it’s just Gale, Jo, Peeta, and me. We watch the others descend into the basement level in silence, and then Gale huffs, and walks down the corridor, ever impatient.

“You’ve been here?” I ask Peeta, who is stood leaning against the wall.

“Yeah. I think so,” he says. “I don’t think it was for very long.”

“Well I never got whisked away,” Jo interjects, kicking at a crumbling bit of plaster. “And I’m glad I didn’t. This is a shithole.”

“I think they took me and some of the others here. After you were rescued, Jo. They relocated us for a while.”

“Why?” I ask, pressing into the wound but unable to stop. “What for?”

“So no one could find us,” Peeta shrugs. It’s obvious to him. He’s been exposed to the mind-set of people like Macar, to the inner workings of Project Nox. “To carry on testing.”

He trails his fingers over the dust-covered metal of a table pushed against the corridor wall, revealing a dull surface that doesn’t gleam in the light.

“They moved us around, sometimes. New facilities. We came here two or three times, maybe. Brought us back just before the end of the war. I’d forgotten this was here, though I never really saw the outside.” He turns on his heel, making a little divot in the dust. “I stayed here for a long time.”

“Who were the others?” asks Gale, having returned at the promise of new information.

“Prisoners of war, some kids of other victors or Capitol dissenters. Some military people, too. They were going to use us as weapons; infiltrate, assassinate, destabilise. But the world split apart before they could get a move on.”

Peeta’s eyes all through this are wide, comically so if it wasn’t for the dark shine in them that matches the dull tone of his voice. I stare, feeling sick, and my knees wobble when he looks my way, head swivelling, eyes unseeing as a thought overtakes him.

“They buried the kids out back.”

Jo and I don’t dare ask, but Gale pushes even when bone is exposed. “What kids?”

“The ones who died. They used to bury them… but I think one of the doctors was superstitious, at least a little. Death is a strange thing in the city and there wasn’t an incinerator here.”

I hug my arms around myself, feeling small, feeling like the walls have eyes.

“Come on,” Jo says. “They wanted us to keep looking around.”

We walk on, Gale in front, Jo and Peeta beside each other, and me behind, continuously checking over my shoulder.

A courtyard, square, overgrown and scraggly, a walled-in garden. “Here,” Peeta says. The wind whistles through smashed window panes. “I thought out back. But it was here.”

We curve through the building, prodding and poking, finding nothing of interest until we come across an offshoot hallway. The door is open, footsteps in the dust from the other group, and on the door the letters –ogn-ti-n bay, the c, i, and o missing.

We would’ve walked past it if it wasn’t for Peeta stopping and pushing the door open with his hand, perched back on the balls of his feet as if expecting something to jump out.          

“I’ll clear it,” he says, his voice gruff, giving no room for argument. I back up against the wall, not liking that my six is exposed. We all seem to be sensing that something happened here. The letters may have been worn from the frosted glass, but it’s clear it was a clinic of some kind. What it had to do with cognition I’m not sure I want to know.

Peeta strides off before any of us can say a word. I stare at Peeta disappearing into the gloomy corridor. Is this what he felt, watching me walk away into the jungle?

“Should we let him go like that?” asks Gale, and Jo sighs.

“We know it’s clear,” she says lowly. “Just—let him.”

A dense silence, and then the sharp pap-pap-pap-pap-pap of machine gun fire, repeated, fast, focused. No return fire. Concentrated shooting. Gale makes to enter, but I call out.

“Wait, wait!” I say, holding out my hand, and thankfully he does, boggling at me. “Wait,” I repeat, and listen. Silence.

I walk past them, gun up but finger off the trigger.

“Katniss, don’t be stupid,” Gale says.

“ _Wait here_ ,” I tell him, walking ahead, feeling their eyes on me but not hearing any orders to turn back. There’s no more gunfire, but the sound echoes in the air as I walk through hallways. It must have been a place once squeaky clean, but now it’s covered in dust, a side effect of the bombs.

Tracking Peeta’s footprints, I pass what look like offices and waiting areas, a hideous mimicry of a hospital’s emergency ward, but it’s all too dark to see into the rooms, and I’m not about to try any handles or press my face against the glass in the doors and take a closer look. Then I come across rooms marked as dormitories, and then finally a room with a glass partition in the wall, so you can see inside. A sky light, half choked with muck and leaves, gives enough daylight to see somewhat, revealing a square room with wooden chairs, a bookcase, a table with a machine of some kind, and three television screens.

It’s there that I find Peeta.

He’s still, almost like a statue if it wasn’t for the heavy rise and fall of his chest. I watch behind the glass for a moment, seeing the bullet holes in the walls and the chairs and the books and the floor. Finally, though I haven’t said a word, he looks through the glass at me, and walks back through, gently closing the door behind him.

“Come on,” he says, and I feel ashamed for following, because now he seems embarrassed, but I take his arm before I can stop myself.

He jolts a little, and I realise it’s the first time I’ve actually actively touched him since he got back, perhaps since the arena. I remove my hand, a soft _sorry_ on my lips.

“Are you okay?” I ask him, and he wipes his nose with his hand, nodding once. He’s ducked his head a little, angling his body and his gaze so he doesn’t have to look at me even though he’s taller, broader.

“Yeah. Just. Wanted to…” he trails off, shrugging again.

“Peeta,” I say, and he blinks several times.

“Don’t tell the others,” he says. “Just don’t.”

I frown. “You remember something.”

“Yes.”

I stare at him. He’s visibly uncomfortable, and horrible as it sounds, it’s the closest I’ve seen him act to his old self since he turned up on our radar.

“Okay,” I mumble. He nods, flicking the safety onto his gun.

“Let’s get back.”

* * *

 

As promised, I say nothing, and Gale and Johanna keep their promise to say nothing about the gunfire. Boggs queries us, and Gale stutters through barely believable story about mistaking mannequins for peacekeepers, as if peacekeepers haven’t been defunct for over two years now. I squeeze his hand on the hovercraft, grateful for his loyalty, and he offers me a smile that can’t reach his eyes.

Later that night, we’ve set up camp in the grounds of an abandoned military base, needing the shelter now that a storm has rolled in from the west. Jackson called off the hovercraft after Boggs assured her we’d be safe for the night, and Command-Five promised to have transport by morning.

So we gather in what was once the cafeteria, setting up our tents in the centre, away from the busted windows, and set up a fire and some food. It’s not my turn for duties, so I sit alone, just far enough away that I can sense the flickering firelight on my skin, but that it doesn’t fully illuminate me.

I listen to the others chatting and laughing and try to focus on that rather than the rotating images of that little television room, of Peeta shooting it up. Whatever that place was—whatever purposed it served within the parameters of Project Nox—I’ll never ask for him to explain, and I doubt he’ll ever tell me.

The smell of food fills the air after a while but it doesn’t prompt me to re-join the group. To my surprise, it’s Peeta who approaches, carrying two punnets of military meal portions. Over by the fire, I see Gale and Johanna watching him walk away.

“Hey,” he says. “You mind if I sit?”

“Sure,” I say, shifting my leg away from the concrete block I’m perched on, giving him room to set the metal punnets down and take a seat as well.

“Bean stew,” he says, taking up his own meal. “Mitchell said it was a staple to him.”

“He’s from Thirteen,” I remark. “Their staples are awful.”

We both try the food, and I don’t dislike the blandness, per se, but there’s little to compliment. We eat silently, spoons clinking against the metal. I stare out through the dusty window at the grassy area outside.

“Katniss,” Peeta says, the word still like a barb to my heart. “You know I find it hard to talk about stuff. And I know that you know I used to be really good at… at talking.”

“Yes,” I murmur, remembering his speeches, his wry commentary.

“I am working on it. But I figured that if I don’t _try_ to get what’s in my head out, it’ll only make it harder to talk in the first place. So.” He stops, gathering his thoughts.

“You don’t _have_ to say anything,” I quietly remind him. “That’s a good option, too.”

He shakes his head. “No. I need to say this to you. I think it’ll help.” _Both of us_ is the unspoken second half of that sentence, hanging in the air between us.

“I’m sorry,” he says, gesturing obliquely with his hand. “I am sorry about this. About me. About us. I can tell you expected more and I just… can’t.”

I blink. Does he not remember talking to me about this? It was barely a month ago. I don’t want to correct him, embarrass him, but I find it odd that he’s repeating himself.

“Peeta,” I say, much more composed than I ever though I would be two years ago. I’ve survived a war, since then, the collapse of society. This hurts like little else I’ve experienced and yet for him, I can stand tall. I don’t want to scare him. “It’s alright.”

He fixes me with a look, the kind of look a child gives when they realise an adult is lying.

“You’re very brave,” he murmurs.

“So people say,” I shrug.

He furrows his brow. “Finnick says I should be kind to you. He said it doesn’t matter much for everyone else because they never really got to know me—”

“They did, Peeta. In the arena... everyone gets to know everyone else, and in Twelve, Gale knew you, and, I, um—” I stop because I know he knows I’m struggling, here.

Because the majority of people who knew Peeta from before are gone, now. Buried beneath rubble. His family and friends, all gone. Delly visited him, I know, but she’s across Panem, now, and I heard her meeting with Peeta was an uneventful one.

Apart from Haymitch and Effie, perhaps, I’m the only person in this world that knows Peeta, better than even he does, in fact. It’s a lot to take in. A lot of responsibility. I could easily try to sculpt him into the image of the man I once knew, the boy with the bread, but I can’t. It’s not just wrong, it’s the exact thought that led Panem to the way it was. People controlling other people, forcing them to be what they’re not. And though I know that this Peeta isn’t natural, per se, but the result of the Capitol, I can’t enforce my vision onto him. Even if I tried, he’d only come out misshapen.

“It’s a lot. To trust you,” he says. “Not just you, I mean, everyone. You could all be lying to me.”

“We’re not,” I say, a bit too fast, and he smiles, just a twitch of his mouth. I release an exhale, laughing slightly. “We’re not. I promise. But I guess you can believe whatever you want.”

I look down at my food. The stew is getting cold, so I scoop the rest into my mouth.

“I think I can trust you, most. I drew you, and, and I dreamed about you, and sometimes I remember things. At first, when I woke up, I didn’t get it. I still don’t, with most of it. But I remembered things. Like I remembered Jo. And my family. I kept remembering you.”

I nod, biting down on my tongue. “Yeah.”

“But it wasn’t like the remembering most people have. It was flashes, images, rarely feelings. I never could place them. When you came to get me I figured it was you I was drawing and since then I’ve just had to piece things together. Even when things seem to easily fall into place I can’t help but question it.”

“I don’t blame you,” I say, bringing my left leg up so I can rest my chin on my knee. “I had a moment when I distrusted everyone. Even Haymitch. It’s been hard, putting my faith into people, especially when they assumed I’d learned how after getting out of two arenas alive. They were always disappointed when I said the result was the exact opposite.”

Peeta nods slowly. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“It happened to you too,” I mumble. “Sometimes I wish I could forget.”

“I can show you how, if you want,” he replies, and I look up, horrified, but he’s grinning, his eyes dark.

“Peeta,” I say, and he looks up at me, coming back to himself.

“I’m making a joke,” he says. “I probably shouldn’t. I’m not good at reading people.”

I hug my knee to my chest. This is odd. I feel like this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but I can’t help but want to get closer, to sink my fingers through dense wool to find wiry fur beneath. I want to stray from the path.

“I’m not either.”

“Yeah, but what’s your excuse?” he shoots back, and my laugh is sharp and sudden, surprising us both, I think.

“Shut up,” I say, feeling my face burn. Peeta looks delighted, like he’s figured out a puzzle. Then he sobers, and sits upright, spine straightening.

“I am sorry,” he says. “It’s not my fault, but I am sorry.”

“Thanks,” I reply. I bite my bottom lip, fearful of testing the waters but knowing I have to if I want to get out of this bottomless pit I’ve been stranded in ever since I got Peeta back. “I’d like to be friends, Peeta. If nothing else. I’m not expecting anything just because of whatever it was we had before. I’m not even sure what we had before, actually. You were always so much more serious than I was and… and I’d like to be friends, now. That’s all I want.”

Peeta exhales. “It’s a big ask on your part.”

“That’s the pot calling the kettle black, really.”

“We’re well matched, then.”

I nod, my smile returning.

Peeta’s hand twitches on his knee, and he screws his eyes shut for a second, before reopening, his gaze razor sharp.

“Who knows?” he says. “Maybe one day I’ll actually remember you.”

I think he means it as a joke, but it lands so wrong that it takes me with it, and he seems to realise this a second after the words have left his mouth. It’s too much, and my chest caves in, because it’s one thing for him to acknowledge that he’s piecing things together and that the picture doesn’t always make sense, or to joke about how neither of us are good at reading people anymore, but it’s another thing entirely to joke about how he’s forgotten his whole life, and with it, me.

I stand, grabbing my tray and spoon, slinging my gun over my shoulder, and hopping over the concrete block and hurrying away. Peeta says nothing, but I can feel him staring at me, at this makes me feel like a jerk for running instead of explaining why it hurt, but I should be allowed to be mad at him, even if he’s the way he is.

By the time I reach the fire, tears are rolling down my cheeks. I set my canteen down and lean my gun with the others, and can tell everyone is looking at me but I don’t want to look at them and then Peeta is walking over and saying _Katniss, listen_ and he sounds _nothing_ like himself and I want to shake him hard at the same time as I want to hold him tight and my voice is rough when I say _I’m going to bed_ and walk towards the tents.

“Wow,” Jo says as I retreat. “I’d always expected _her_ to be the one making _you_ cry, not the other way around.”

I fall into my tent, zipping up the doorway and falling face-first onto the little roll bed, and just let my tears fall. I have never been more alone in this world. It’s not even my world any more, just a carcass, filled with people I who no longer recognise me.

* * *

 

When I wake before sunrise the next morning, ready to keep watch for the remainder of the night, I can feel that my eyes are puffy and likely bloodshot. I haven’t cried like that for some time now, becoming so used to pushing much of my emotion down and out of the way that when I do let it out, when I do let it take over, it’s like a wave, and I can’t swim against the tide no matter how hard I try.

I walk over to Homes, taking his spot by a window. His dark eyes gleam in the grey morning light.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and I don’t realise what he’s talking about at first, until he glances over his shoulder. Sat by the window where I left him the night before is Peeta, still, stoic, on watch as well.

“Yeah,” I say. “Get some sleep, Homes.”

He rests his hand briefly on my shoulder as he passes, and I appreciate the show of support. I don’t want it, not really. Pity makes my toes curl. But Homes means well, as do all the others on this squad. And though none of them have brought it up yet, no directly, I know they’re watching out for Peeta and I, watching for if one of us cracks.

Last night was a boiling point, I guess. A flash of heat that I was unprepared for. I’m mildly embarrassed for letting the others seem me cry even though I know I shouldn’t be, but Peeta’s off-the-cuff comment caught me off guard, startled me. I haven’t felt that way since before the war. The war has always been a slow slog, a marathon needing endurance, and nothing have ever seemed surprising, just inevitable.

And now Peeta is back, and I feel like I did when Prim was reaped, just barely five years ago. It feels like a lifetime ago, but I remember walking onto that stage, staring into the crowd, and hardly hearing Peeta’s name being called over the ringing in my ears, his hand shaking mine a mere ghost. What I would give for that kind of contact again. For that kind of relationship. At least then we had nothing but local trauma to connect us. Now we’re so splintered I have trouble fitting us together.

So I sit by the window, watching the sun rising over the overgrown grounds around the military base. There are some trees which have been downed during the night, and everything has that flattened wet look that plants get after a storm.

I try not to think of Peeta on the other side of the cafeteria, try to ignore the prickling in my spine at knowing that he’s there. I watch the sun and I watch the trees in the distance and as the day’s sunlight warms my face, I hear birdsong.

When the bombs stopped, and the gunfire cease, and the dust began to settle upon the land, the birds began to sing like there had never been any fighting. The warfare ended once the armistice was signed, and nature exhaled.

Two hours later, the others begin to wake in dredges. Leeg 2 is always up first, and walks sleepily to the campfire to start making breakfast for the squad. Soon enough Boggs is up, heading straight for the comms and talking with Command-Five, reporting to higher-ups. Jo brings me coffee, black and strong like she likes and I hate, and silently sits beside me.

Her hair is mussed with sleep, but with just one or two swipes of her hands she has it looking artfully so. She warms her hands on the metal cup and grimaces at me, her version of a smile.

“He feels like shit too,” she says. “Went real weird after you walked off.”

I stare at the coffee. “How do you mean?”

“Like when you tell a kid off, and they’re embarrassed about being told off but confused about what they did.”

“I know he meant it as a joke.”

“So why did you walk off?”

“Because I wasn’t expecting it. And the way he said it… if I’d have stayed he’d have had to see me crying.”

Jo lifts her eyebrows over the rim of her drink. “You think he won’t be able to handle it?”

“More like he won’t be able to compute,” I mutter, and then instantly backtrack, feeling like a jerk. “That’s not—that’s not how…” I trail off.

“You know, he always seemed a bit square before. He could take a joke but he wasn’t good at the kind of humour me and Finn and the majority of the other victors liked. Dark humour, you know. Dry.” She smiles into her cup, obviously remembering something, perhaps from the Victory Tour or from before the Quarter Quell, a moment when Peeta was socialising with the victors and I was holed in my room, dwelling.

“I think that if you said that to him now, he’d think it was funny.”

“That doesn’t mean I should say it.”

Jo shrugs. “Mmm. Maybe.”

She clinks her mug against mine, and I hand mine over. “I don’t want it,” I say, and she rolls her eyes, taking a sip.

“He’s going to try and apologise, and it’s going to make the rest of us feel gross, okay?” she says. “Don’t make the prisoner of war apologise.”

“ _Johanna_ ,” I say, mouth falling open, but she’s already walking off, finishing off my coffee in one gulp.

* * *

 

The flight home is supposed to be a simple one, and Boggs prepares a report for Jackson and Paylor on the way, asking for everyone to fill in. Gale, Jo, and I say nothing about Peeta shooting up that room, a silent promise to each other, and to him. He sits alone, in the corner, and I steal glances his way.

Now I have to apologise to him, explain that it’s okay. That I’m not angry with him or anything, that it just surprised me and that I know he’s not actually trying to be malicious. It’s a tricky area to navigate and I’ve never been good at saying sorry.

I promise myself to find him when we get back, using the time in the hovercraft to formulate a response that will get everything I want to say across without digging myself a deeper hole and handing him the shovel before I jump in.

But as we’re flying over Three we get an emergency request, calling for all available units to assist. A factory has exploded, and it’s clear that either Capitol allies or some other enemy cell is behind it, shooting enforcement personnel and taking civilian hostages. It’s the last thing we expected, but we’re always prepared.

We scramble as the hovercraft changes direction, throwing on combat gear, loading weapons, listening to Boggs barking orders and correspond with those on the ground. Through the window I spot the column of smoke rising from the factory and the glow of flames, but it’s not until we’ve landed in what must have once been a market square, now cleared for aircraft use, and the ramp deploys that I hear the silence in the streets, punctuated only by distant gunfire.

Squad 451 meets up with teams already on the ground, and we quickly coordinate a plan of attack. Close in on the factory while another team uses underground service tunnels, save the hostages, hit the offenders.

We approach through the streets, using low walls and stacks of crates and whatever else we can find for shelter. Covering our teammates when they advance, returning fire when necessary.

“Everdeen, Leegs, head south,” Boggs orders over the comms, and I quickly fall in with the twins down an adjacent street.

I see the factory, smell the burning, and spot the insurgents. Not allies of Snow’s regime, but of Coin’s, if their hastily-erected flag is to be believed.

“Seven hostages, four at north, three at south,” Boggs says. “Orders for sharpshooters to get into position and fire with extreme prejudice.”

After that, everything seems to fall apart. The Leegs and I get closer and closer, Homes joining us at the rear, and we cover for him as he sprints towards an outhouse where he can fire from. The rest of the squad is moving in too, shouts and orders exchanged.

Then, screaming, and a boom, and comms reports of one of the northern hostages being shot, escalation of the situation, and Homes begins to fire, sharp and precise, and then there’s a roaring sound and someone yelling about a truck, and then one of the heavily-armoured trucks that Peacekeepers used to travel in which have since been largely decommissioned and stripped appears out of nowhere, barrelling across the open space in front of the factory at a speed I can barely comprehend, and then the Leegs are scrambling and I’m just staring at this bulky grey machine and at the flaming building behind it, and then the truck hits the building next to me, sending tiles and bricks flying, and a pair of arms are around me, pulling me out of the way before I can even think to move myself.

There’s the thunderous clatter of girders collapsing into concrete, and a spray of debris against my side, and the fractured echo of gunfire before the world goes black.

* * *

 

When I wake, I feel the way I did when I was shot in District 8, saved only by Cinna’s chest plate. That same heaviness pushing against my ribs, the pulsating pain in my lungs. And then I feel dust on my lips and in my eyes and blink until I can see enough to tell that I’m lying under rubble, the wheel of the overturned truck perhaps ten meters away, barely visible, and Peeta is lying just to the side of me.

It’s clear, from the way that he’s lying, that he had tried to cover my body with his.

“Peeta,” I say, hacking and spluttering. I strain until I can reach the material of his pants, which I tug to try and wake him. “Peeta,” I say, dragging myself as best as I can when there’s rubble on me, barely moving an inch.

He’s knocked out cold, but breathing, thank god, if the little puffs of dust being pushed away by his exhales is anything to go by. Blood is pouring down the side of his head—not good. But he’s alive. And he… he put his body in front of mine.

It’s a revelation, the idea that something in Peeta’s mind shifted, something clicked. He hasn’t been hostile to me, not like the doctors thought he would, but there certainly hasn’t been that stupid self-sacrificial behaviour he had before, the one that got him bit by mutts or hit around the head with a rolling pin.

And why would there be? He’s a changed man. Not by choice, but changed nevertheless, and that brings with it a new perspective on me, on how much I’m worth to him. And yet he throws himself in front of me, saving my life.

It feels selfish, but I can’t help the burning hot tears that roll down my cheeks. I strain again, reach for his leg, and my fingers make contact with cool metal. It’s another hit to my soul, but I hold on anyway. His leg is part of him, especially now, though I want to feel his skin. I want to feel his warmth.

“Peeta,” I whisper, shaking my head. _“Thank you_.”

* * *

 

Within a minute or so, I hear voices replacing gunshots. Gale and Boggs shouting, someone screaming, the scrape and thud of rubble being shifted.

“Katniss!” Boggs is yelling. “Peeta! Can you hear me?!”

I cough, clearing my throat, and hoarsely reply. “I can hear you! Peeta’s unconscious!”

“Don’t move, we’re coming to get you!” Boggs shouts back, and my head drops back against the rubble I’m lying on, relieved to be alive, to have Peeta here, even unconscious.

So I just lie there, feeling uncannily like I did when the claw lifted me from the second arena and into the glowing mouth of the rebel hovercraft, and wait for the shadowed gloom of the collapsed building to be fractured by a beam of daylight as a piece of rubble is pulled aside.

Gale’s face appears. He looks wild, frantic.

“Catnip!” he bellows.

“I’m fine, I’m okay!” I call back, waving my hand into the light so he can see how close I am.

It takes a few minutes more to clear enough space for a rope to be thrown in, for a District 3 soldier to crawl into the rubble and locate me.

“Take him first,” I beg her, motioning to Peeta’s prone body. It’s clear she has orders to do the opposite, but I refuse to let her get me out until Peeta is in the clear. “I can walk, I can get out by myself. Just take him.”

She nods, looping a rope around Peeta the best she can in the confined space. She looks young, younger than me, and I wonder if she’s internally freaking out a little right now, coming face-to-face with the two people she saw on Capitol television, one of whom fought in the rebellion, and the other of whom crawled out of hell. Saving the Mockingjay and the Martyr. It’s a story to take home to the family, if you have any left.

She guides Peeta out into the open, and then crawls after him, and I follow close behind, squinting in the daylight and finding my bearings.

“Thank you,” I tell the girl, stumbling to where Peeta is being loaded onto a spine board. A pair of hands on my face, cupping my cheeks. Gale.

“I’m alright, I’m alright,” I tell him. “Peeta saved me. I’m alright.”

He lets me go, and I go to Peeta. A doctor is tending to his head, testing for other injuries. Around me, the street is busy, filled with soldiers and other personnel. The squad watches me, and Boggs marched over, furious.

“What the hell happened?” he asks, grabbing my arm, not in punishment but to steady me.

I shake my head. “A truck hit the building. Peeta grabbed me, pulled me out of the way.” I blink, wiping my hand over my dusty face. I must look like hell. “Did you get the hostages?”

“The hostages are safe, the rebels were aligned with Coin. We’re helping put out the factory fire right now—I can’t believe you two.”

I frown. “What?”

“You and him. Ridiculous. He wasn’t even supposed to be near you.”

“Peeta?”

“Ignored my orders, joined you and the Leegs. Got thrown back by a half-detonated pipe bomb, and before the smoke had even cleared I could see him running towards you when the truck started coming. Dived straight into the rubble.”

I look back at the half-collapsed building, the bricks, the concrete, the metal beams. We were lucky to survive.

“I don’t understand,” I say, half to myself. Boggs is radioing in and his eyes flicker to me. Once he’s answered, he puts his hands on my elbows.

“This is an order, Everdeen. Listen to me. Get in that medic van, _let them take care of you_. I’m sending you back to Five.”

“Boggs—”

“You’re not about to argue with your CDR, are you?”

I shake my head. “No, but—”

“I don’t understand it either,” he says. “But you need to go home. You need to rest. We’ll deal with everything here.”

He marches off towards a Lieutenant from Three to coordinate, and I climb into the medic van where Peeta is being tended to. Finnick appears at the doors as they begin to close.

“Katniss,” he says. His eyes are wide. He has dust in his copper hair. “He saved you,” he says, and I feel it in my chest. “He saved you, Katniss.”

I look at Peeta, still unconscious.

“Why?” I say, out loud. At the door, Finnick’s face does something complicated. A smile, but a frown, but a grimace.

“He’s still there, somewhere. He’s not gone, Katniss.”

The medic urges us that we need to move and Finnick steps back, letting the van doors shut and the vehicle lurch forward, but he’s said enough. I understand enough. Finnick has been spending a lot of time with Peeta since he came back, and I’ll admit I was jealous, but it’s good. It’s a good thing. Finnick has been able to get through to this new Peeta, this new person.

The war changed us. All of us. But we’re still in there, somewhere. All of us have retained some of who we were before this all happened. We had to. It was a matter of survival. And now it glows, faintly, deep inside. It’s battered and torn and stringy, but it remains. There’s light, there. Amidst the darkened fog.

I feel tears on my cheek and wipe them away, but my hand comes back red. Blood, hot and slow like syrup, from my head.

“Here,” says the medic, pressing bandages to the wound and putting my hand on top. “Hold onto that.”

 


	23. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annie Cresta and Finnick Odair are the best characters in the whole damn series fIghT mE

_Light, refracting. Skittering like bird song through branches, through the bars over the window and the guns gleam and the table shudders._

_“What do you want?”’ he asks, the words garbled in his mouth. He’s breathing heavy, he’s drenched in sweat. His eyes hurt, his bones aches. He’s so tired. “What do you want?” he pants. “You’ve won. You’ve won. Why are you doing this?”_

_It doesn’t make sense to him. He was in the arena one moment, and then next the world shattered into electricity, and he saw Katniss being lifted out into the sky by God’s mechanical hand. He fought at first, when they took him too, but he knew he’d see Katniss. And then he didn’t. He just heard screaming and saw shadows through the hood and then they’d knocked him out and he’d woken in the training centre but something wasn’t quite right. There was the sound of gunfire outside, brief spurts of it, and then silence. The windows had been dimmed, so he couldn’t see out, but he knew something was happening._

_He demanded to see her._

_“Let me out!” he’d roar, hammering on the door with his fists. “Let me out! Let me see her!”_

_He didn’t. He didn’t see anyone for a long time, just Avoxes who he didn’t want to endanger by asking them questions, so he exchanged looks and they gave them back and he tried to piece together an explanation._

_And then they took him from the training centre to this subterranean hell, which might as well have been a third arena. And he finally saw Johanna, and Enobaria, but she was gone pretty quickly, and also a woman who he soon figured out what Annie Cresta, girl of the waves, and then Darius, the young peacekeeper from Twelve, and so many others._

_And then there was blood and red-hot injections in his veins and screams like animals being skinned alive. And then this. This. And they never told him what or who or why. They just did._

* * *

 

_The world eventually faded from his grasp. Repeated electrocutions can do that to a person. Beatings, waterboarding, experiments too hideous to put into words. Johanna talking to him through the wall and soon he stopped responding and just listened, and then he stopped listening until one day she was gone, too. The lights went out, and Johanna stood and stumbled and hefted herself upright, her scalp covered in burns, and she laughed. And then the white coats came and took knocked her out and she screamed until the sound died, and they rattled on his door and he stood and followed them out and they injected him in the neck and the next time he woke up he was in a building in the woods and he watched the television, day after day after day after—_

_Time faded, his name drifted, his mind detached itself from his corrupt core. A safety mechanism. An automatic response._

* * *

 

_Warm water, salty, washing up and down the sand. Glossy green leaves with eyes. The chitter of bugs and fanged things. Wedged in place in the beach; an axe, a machete, a quiver of arrows._

_Eating bread amidst—friends, allies, victims? The definition is unclear, constantly shifting—and keep watch at the island. Timing our movements._

_She stands and brushes sand from her thighs, takes my hand. She looks tired, but she smiles. “Come on. I’ll teach you how to swim.”_

_He should’ve learnt, but most kids his age didn’t. The biggest body of water he’d ever encountered was the bathtub. But she slipped beneath the fence and into the woods and swam in lakes and rivers. She is an otter, and he is a great, clumsy oaf._

_She teaches him some basic strokes in the shallows, their bare feet sinking into the seabed, and her hands on his hips, his waist, or sculpting his fingers into scoops to swim faster, it’s the best thing. These small touches. He smiles at her, and she smiles back, but they don’t talk unless it’s about swimming._

_He trusts her to hold him up as he floats on his back, and he stares at the sky. He can’t really fathom how close or how far the roof is, but he knows it’s there._

_He’s so distracted by this that he sinks down and gets water up his nose. He resurfaces and she’s laughing at him, so he splashes her. She lurches backwards and under the waves and her hair slicks down on her head. He smiles. He loves her. He loves her. And now it’s too late._

* * *

 

_“They want to turn him into something, that’s what I heard.”_

_A pair of guards keeping watch. As if he’d the strength to move. He just wants to be warm. He’s shuddering in the cold._

_“They’ve weaponised living beings before, but not like this. I didn’t think they’d be able to do it but the war is a better opportunity than any other. He’s the secret weapon. He’ll kill her for them.”_

* * *

 

_“What about you, lover boy?” asks Cato. He’s all smirks and flashing, violent eyes, but Peeta sees something else there. He’s afraid. Cato is only two years older than him and even though he’s been trained for this, prepared from birth, he’s scared. He glances at the trees surrounding the meadow every time there’s the snap of a branch or the rustle of leaves._

_“What about me?” Peeta replies, eating his portion of food. He’s close enough to the fire to feel the warmth, but far enough away that he’s not close to the others. He doesn’t trust them. Not even the boy from District Three, who’s a nervous, skinny kid hauled in to reactivate the mines. He won’t last till tomorrow._

_“What are you gonna do if you win?”_

_He knows they’re joking, teasing. All of them, sat here, looking exactly how all past victors do, they’re all planning to kill him. And they know he knows it. He knows he might have to kill one of them to get away._

_“I’ll help the poor people in my district,” he says, scuffing his foot in the dirt. “Most people there don’t have enough to eat. And I don’t need all that money. So I’d help everyone else.”_

_There’s a silence. The District 2 female, Clove, is watching him closely, and she’s stopped spinning her knife._

_And then Cato laughs. The knife begins to spin again. “You don’t deserve to win,” he crows. “You’d be just like your mentor. Useless.”_

_Peeta prickles despite himself. Then Glimmer giggles. “He only cares because she’s one of the poor people in his district.”_

_“She looks just fine to me,” Marvel says. “Gets plenty to eat, I’d say.”_

_Peeta looks down. These people are as scared as he is, but they have blind ignorant hope to keep them going. He just has… Nothing. He just has himself._

* * *

 

_The whir and whine of the electricity turns his stomach. He feels tendrils of it in the air, reaching and grazing his skin, pulling at him. He wants to throw up. His mind is buzzing, a loud, painful static, and he’s getting flashes of something he knows is a memory but it’s so obscured that he can barely place it. He. He. What is he? Is he a he or an it?_

_“Look at him!” shouts a voice. They’re angry. The tests have been failing. He’s just too resilient. “All the work we’ve done and you only made him—you’ve made him into this! We can’t use this! He’d never be able to kill her! They’d figure it out the moment they spotted him!”_

_He vomits, and it pools in his throat and he begins to choke. The shouting gets louder, cursing, and rough hands turn him onto his side so he can breathe again._

* * *

 

_The mutts circle below, a hissing, gurgling growl, snapping, jaws dripping. They fought on the top of the cornucopia, all three of them, and now the last survivor, the only one keeping him from going home, is hugging him? No. Not hugging, he’s holding him back, one arm around his neck. He tries to pull himself free but he’s strong, and desperate, and could easily throw him down for the mutts to tear him to pieces._

_He looks to her, to the girl who saved his life. And she’s pointing an arrow at him. She’s aiming for him. Aiming to kill. She’ll kill them both and go home like she’s meant to._

_“Go on,” says the tribute holding him. Holding him safe? No. No! That’s not what this is! Her eyes are wide. “Shoot. And we both go down, and you win. Go on.”_

_He blinks. This was what he was thinking?_

_(The entire memory is messed up. The present is warping the past.)_

_“I’m dead anyway. I always was, right? I didn’t know until now.”_

_He draws a cross on the back of the boy’s hand. Please. Aim here._

_“Isn’t that what they want, huh?” he’s yelling now, furious, end-of-days distress. “No! I can still do this. I can still do this. One more kill. It’s the only thing I know how to do. Bring pride to my district. Not that it matters—”_

_She fires, he shouts, and he pushes him off to the mutts._

_One more kill._

_“Peeta!” she says, gasping, dropping the bow. The mutts are swarming._

_One more kill. It’s the only thing I know how to do._

* * *

 

He wakes in a brightly lit facility and the first thing he does is lift his hands to test the strength of the cuffs.

But there are none. His wrists are free and he is free. And the bed is soft and clean and there’s no sound but the beep of a machine and the quiet murmur of voices and footsteps just outside the room. He squints in the bright light. He can feel the dull thrum of a pain numbed by medicine but he doesn’t feel immobilised by it. He feels safe. Tired, but warm.

“Peeta,” says a voice, and he looks over. And there she is. The girl he’s heard so much about. Katniss.

She’s sat in a chair with a blanket, curled up. She has a bandage on her head, and some bruises on her forehead, but she’s alive.

Peeta remembers the truck and the thunder of the building collapsing and he knew that he was running after her and that he wanted to get her away, wanted to stop her from being hurt.

He can’t help the visceral sense of terror at waking up in this facility. Something is telling him to keep calm, telling him that he’s safe, this time, that no one is going to hurt him, but after years of long hours in dark cages or splayed on metal tables he can’t shake it. It must show in his face, because Katniss is up in an instant, coming up beside him.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. We’re in District 5, in the hospital.”

He breathes heavily. His head hurts. His mind is filled with flashes of the truck hitting the building, of finding the facility in the woods, of killing, killing, killing, of the Games he remembers as if they were a dream. Is all this necessary? Is this remembering part of the recovering?

“How long…” he mumbles, trying to sit up. He hates being on his back like this.

“You woke up two days ago but they put you back under. It’s been four days since District Three. They brought us straight here. You had some internal bleeding.” She pauses, pushing her hair behind her ear, her hands floating somewhere around him. She doesn’t know if she should touch.

“I’ll get the doctor,” she says, and he nods. She retreats from the room. He inhales, exhales, focuses. He trusts that she’s telling the truth about this. That she’s not in the city. He used to think he could hear her, or that he’d see glimpses of her in the training centre, in the medical centre, in all the dark hallways and surgery halls, or in the streets of Panem as he wondered and reconstructed himself. He soon realised that it was his mind, after all. All that time, he raged against them for torturing her after taking them from the arena, and she wasn’t even there. She was never there.

But she’s here, now. He’s certain. She is here in flesh and blood and her hands left faint, quickly-fading prints on the cold metal of the bed frame and the chair she was sat on is slowly inflating itself now that she’s gone.

When the doctors come in, asking him countless questions and shining light into his eyes, she stands back. She hugs her arms around herself. She offers him a smile when he winces because the doctors peel back a bandage and he doesn’t smile back, but he appreciates it. It’s perhaps the most human he’s felt since we woke up in the street.

* * *

 

She sits and eats hospital food with him.

“You want this?” he asks, pointing to the swirled pastry on his tray. It’s too bland for him, and he knows they need more butter to make the dough sweet enough to handle the sickly treacle on top.

“Yeah, you don’t like them?” she asks, and he shakes his head. She leans in and takes it, wiping her fingers on a cloth.

They eat in silence for a little longer, and then he asks.

“What happened in Three?”

She sips her drink, and then, half hidden by her cup, answers.

“A rebel truck drove into the building. You pulled me out of the way just in time.”

He nods. “Why?”

“Why?” she echoes.

“I don’t… I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t. But I didn’t think I’d do that. Jump in like that.” He shakes his head. Everything that comes out of his mouth seems wrong. That’s why he ended up upsetting her in District 2. He hadn’t meant to and he’d known it was a dumb thing to do when her face had crumpled. But sometimes the words just come out.

And now, he’s sat here, trying to rationalise why the hell he’d jumped into a collapsing building fuelled by nothing less than an innate need to protect her. Good luck for her, but confusing for him. Of course, he’s glad to have done it. He know it would’ve been bad if she had been crushed by the building. The squad relies on her, whether they or she know it or not. And he’s seen how people talk about her. This war was because of her, but so was the fall of the government who ruled before.

But the question remains, of why he risked himself for her. When he tries to think about what his thought process was before he ran after her, he can’t figure it out. His ears were ringing, he knows that much, and he could smell ash on his tongue.

He knows that once he loved her a great deal. So much that he’d willingly die to protect her. Perhaps she loved him back. Whatever it is, is it possible that some last fragile piece remains? Deep, buried within him, is there a glow, a warmth, an attachment towards the mockingjay, to Katniss Everdeen, to the girl he’d heard so much about? He’d drawn her, after all. Dreamed of her. Screamed her name into the dark. She was once his world. And then his world became smouldering coals. And then she emerged, the flames licking at his heels.

Peeta can’t deny that he’s felt a curious pull towards her for all this time. He hasn’t acted on it, hasn’t pressed too much, hasn’t shown his hand for fear that it was the now-dormant monster urging him on, but it’s been there. Unshakeable. Is it necessary? Does she feel it too?

“I think… I think you were just doing what anyone else would,” Katniss says thoughtfully. “You’re not a bad person, Peeta. You’ve always wanted to help others, even at your own detriment.”

Her smile is soft, faintly mournful.

“I’m glad you helped me, though,” she says. “I don’t want to be dead.”

“Nothing could kill you,” he replies. “You’ve outlived everything.”

“There was a lot of luck involved,” she murmurs, her gaze growing distant for a moment, before she looks back at him. “I think you’re tougher than me, Peeta.”

He shrugs. He had to be. His survival was different. It wasn’t his choice.

“Boggs said you got thrown back by a pipe bomb,” she says, wiping her finger over her plate. “Maybe that jostled something in there. Made you remember.”

He furrows his brow. It would make sense. Beatings and electrocutions usually had some modicum of comfort in them, in that he’d recalibrate to an earlier state, where he’d remember something from before and use it as a defence against the present.

“Maybe,” he says. “I knocked my head.”

“Yeah, you did,” she says, reaching out before she can stop herself, her fingers grazing his forehead where the bandages lay. She freezes, but he carefully leans into her palm, closing his eyes. Who’s the prey and who’s the predator, he doesn’t know, but he just wants to feel the touch. Her calloused, rough skin, warm against his forehead.

“Macar and the others… they changed you. I know that. You know that. But you’re not entirely changed, Peeta. And change isn’t always a bad thing. I recognise lots of you, even if on the outside it seems like you’re completely different.”

She means it as a comfort, and it is. But god, it hurts. He picks at his fingernails for a moment.

“They tried to get me to kill you.” He feels small, in this hospital bed. Like a doll wrapped in paper.

Katniss has taken her hand away. She is solemn. “That was their plan, yes. Kill me, end the war.”

He nods, brow furrowed, eyes distant. “But they failed.”

“Yes.”

He nods again, and then stops, eyes flickering up to focus on her. Things are falling into place. This pull… this longing. Maybe it’s not lost after all. Maybe it’s ahead, waiting for him, or maybe it never left. Maybe, in those dark, long nights of knives against skin and crackling static screens, it was there, crouched beside him, not letting him give in. Every flat line, every resurgence of breath and brain activity, lungs refilling, gasping, gasping, it was there. He couldn’t help it. They could take out whatever they wanted, but parts of it were too deep to access, too wide to contain. Removal would have proved fatal, and they couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have that.

“I must’ve loved you a lot,” he says, simply, an observation, but she looks like he’s shot her in the gut. She chokes, and blinks fast, and he rubs the fabric of the sheets just to feel the threads.

“Yes. Yes you did.”

He nods, eyes running over her. She looks up at him. She doesn’t look upset. “Okay,” he says.”

“I—I don’t expect you to love me now,” she says, the words dropping from her mouth. “I don’t expect anything. I know I’ve said all this before, but, I just want you to be safe and happy, Peeta. I mean that.”

She lets him think, though he knows the wait must be killing her. He takes a breath, his chest swelling. This is the question that deserves to come next. For both of their sakes.

“Did you love me back?”

“I—” she begins, and then halts, forcing herself to work out the words first. “It was complicated. I didn’t. Not at first. But it didn’t take long, and then I was too blind to understand that I really did. It took a long time for me to actually acknowledge it, actually.”

His expression doesn’t change as she speaks, and she looks away.

“Do you still love me?” he asks, wary. What answer would he want most? A no, and the relief of not being a broken, false version of the man she had been looking for? Or a yes, and the fear that she was trying to piece together a life in which he was too broken to function.

Peeta frowns at her. She’s not saying anything, and she usually says something. She’s just picking at her thumbnail. He reads her silence as an answer enough.

A yes, then.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he’s pleased that it sounds like he means it, because he does. What a torture, for the far-gone dead to return, and to still love such a limping, broken beast. “This—I can’t imagine this is easy for you.”

A smile twitches at the side of her mouth. “No. No, it isn’t.” She exhales. “But I get how you felt, now. For all those years. I really had no excuse, Peeta.”

He wants to lighten the mood. Wants her to keep smiling. It’s a revolutionary thing, to want her to keep smiling.

“I must have been good looking,” he jokes, scuffing a hand over his rough cheek. She smiles, tucks her hair behind her ear.

“You still are, Peeta. I promise.”

* * *

 

Five days after he’s admitted to the hospital in Five (overkill, he thinks, because he’s fine, but then the doctor says his head wound made them concerned), he gets a new visitor.

Finnick, knocking at the door. Peeta invites him in, glad to see the man who’s helped him so much. Who never laughed at his questions, who he felt he could trust from the start, who told him they had all missed him, and that he was sorry he ever thought he was dead.

“You’re looking well,” he says, quietly shutting the door behind him. He’s in casual clothes, his hair a riot of curls and waves. He looks fairly relaxed.

“I feel fine. They won’t let me go.”

“It’s for your benefit, but it sucks, I know,” Finnick replies. He drums his hands on the bars of the bed. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” he says. Peeta narrows his eyes slightly. Finnick is nervous. It doesn’t suit him.

“Who?” he asks.

“Well, it’s two people, actually. I’ve spoken about them before, in passing. You met one of them before. But they both want to meet you. I want you to meet them.”

It’s a lot to take in. But he can’t say no.

“Stay there, stay there,” Finnick says when he makes to climb out of the bed. He goes to the door and leans out, beckoning, and Peeta smoothes his hair the best he can, all while his mind races to figure out who Finnick is talking about.

The door opens wider, and a small child runs in. A child, with bright red hair and green eyes and a huge, gap-tooth smile, toddling over the linoleum, gazing at the room. Finnick’s son, Rigg, who Peeta has heard much about. But that means, and of course, Annie appears, her auburn hair falling in waves around her head. She touches Finnick’s elbow as she passes him, and then approaches Peeta.

He hears the sounds from the city and the torture, but he doesn’t see anything in his mind’s eye. He just feels his heart swelling. She’s alive. Of course she is. And she’s so complete.

“Annie,” he says.

“Hello, Peeta,” she replies. He’s out of the bed before anyone can stop him, and they hug, arms tight around one another. It’s the first time he’s seen her since the city, years ago, now. “I’ve missed you.”

“Annie,” he says again. She smells like salt and sunlight.

“Mama!” says Rigg, who’s trying to swing on a monitor. Finnick hauls him off, making the boy giggle, and carries him over to the bed, dumping him in the middle. Peeta is faintly honoured—albeit surprised—that his parents are so happy to have their son rollicking around a person like him.

“Rigg,” Annie says. “This is Peeta. He’s mama’s friend. Say hello.”

Rigg’s hands go into stars as he waves and says hello, and Peeta stares at him.

“He’s so big,” he says.

“Dense as anything,” Finnick says. “But we wouldn’t have him any other way.”

Peeta sits down, feel woozy, and after a cup of water, Rigg crawls into his lap and pokes at Peeta’s bandages. Finnick sits in Katniss’ chair, and Annie sits cross-legged at the other end of the bed.

“When they rescued me and Johanna, they couldn’t find you,” she says. “I told them where you were kept, but it was empty.”

“They moved me a few hours before. Somehow they knew they were coming.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. You and Jo wouldn’t have made it out if you had stayed.”

“That’s not the point.”

“No. But it’s true.”

Annie looks at her husband. “Finn,” she says. “Take Rigg to the cafeteria for a minute, please.” Finnick stands and scoops Rigg over his shoulder.

“Comm me when you’re ready,” he says, kissing Annie’s cheek, and then he’s gone. Annie leans forward and takes Peeta’s hand.

“You kept me alive in there,” she says. “You did. You and Jo helped each other and I wasn’t able to help you but you both helped me. When I heard that you were nowhere to be found… it tore me apart, knowing that I couldn’t help. I’d spent months alongside you, and I didn’t know.”

Peeta shakes his head. “I didn’t know either. Still don’t, not really. I wouldn’t just wake up somewhere new.”

She squeezes his fingers tightly in hers. “I go to a therapist all the time. They didn’t give me one before, after my Games. Finn did what he could, but he wasn’t trained, and even though he understood, he didn’t know. I am much better now. But when I heard you were gone, and when the months went by and it was like you’d never existed…” she stops, laughs slightly. “I thought for a while that I’d imagined you.

“I’d never met you before then. I’d heard so much, and I’d seen you on the television. Saw you win the first Games with Katniss, saw you fighting for each other. The Tour and the Quell. And then I finally got to meet you, and then I was gone.” She lifts her eyebrows. “The mind is a funny thing, Peeta. You can’t control it, but it doesn’t quiet control you, either. I know you might feel lost in there, but you’re right where you’re supposed to be. Just because things aren’t the same doesn’t mean people don’t still love you. Look at me. I still have Finn.”

“I don’t feel like a person, sometimes.”

“Who does?” she’s frank about it. He can detect the slight off-kilter about her, but she’s so settled in herself, so calm and quiet, that he almost likes the vague peril. She doesn’t mind it so much, so he doesn’t either. He likes Annie. It might have only been fifteen minutes, but he likes her a lot.

“They made you into a weapon, but they never wanted anything more, Peeta. And yet here you are. Finding whatever stability you can.” Her fingers trace his pulse beneath his wrist. “Human after all.”

He wants to cry. It’s odd. Crying. Not an emotion he’s felt particularly tethered to for some time.

“I wouldn’t be like this if I knew how not to be like this,” he says.

Annie looks up. “I know. Me neither. But it’s more harmful to punish yourself for it. All we can do is keep going.”

“It’s hard.”

“Yeah. It is. But time moves on. The sun rises over the dappled waves, the gulls sing. Things can be good again. I promise.”

“How did you do it?” he asks.

“There’s no single way out.”

“I know, I know. But…”

She leans back, rests her forearms on her bent knees.

“I just went home,” she says. “I found home, and I didn’t let go of it.”

* * *

 


	24. Katniss

When the idea comes to me, the first person I call is Haymitch. He picks up at the last ring, greeting me with a rough _it’s late in Five, sweetheart_ and then Effie calls her greetings somewhere in the background, and then Haymitch takes the call out onto the porch. I can almost hear the rush of the waves in the distance.

“I want to take Peeta to District 12,” I blurt out. “I know he hasn’t been there since he left after the reaping for the Quell, and I think he’s forgotten a lot of it. And it’s where he comes from. It’s where we both come from. I think it might be good for him. To see.”

Haymitch is quiet for a while.

“Twelve is ruins,” he eventually says. “You really want to take him to where his family and friends were killed?”

“They’ve rebuilt. The bakery is the memorial ground, now. There’s no ruins left. It’s all new.”

“Not the village. They left it standing.”

“Yes.”

“You really think it’ll do him good?”

“Yes.”

He sighs. “I can’t decide for you.”

“I think it’ll help,” I mumble. “He’s been transported to and from all these military bases and mission sites, we stumbled across some facility he was kept at last week, and he either doesn’t remember or doesn’t want to tell anyone about what happened there so it’s a total mystery. He’s got no settled place. And we talked last night. It was good. I told him that I… that I loved him. Or, sort of. He figured it out.”

Haymitch hums. “How’d he take it?”

“Well, I think. He must remember more than he realises, because he puts things together pretty quickly, and sometimes he talks about things and I don’t think he knows that it’s a memory he’s held onto or recovered.”

“And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Well I assume he didn’t proclaim his love for you back.”

“No. No, he didn’t. But it’s okay. All I want is for him to be safe and happy. I’m happy if he’s happy.”

“But…”

“No buts.”

“There’s always a but. People can’t be entirely selfless.”

“I’m going to ask him to come to Twelve with me. We’re both off duty until next week so now is a better time than ever. We’ll go back and I’ll help him remember. Maybe it’ll make him feel more like himself.”

“Just be careful, sweetheart.”

“He’s not going to hurt me.”

“I know. But you’re going to let yourself get hurt. You’ll never blame him for it, but it won’t mean you won’t be affected.”

I stare into the near distance, listening to Haymitch breathe.

“I’ll call you later,” I say.

“Tell Johanna to call me,” he says by way of a farewell, and then the line disconnects.

* * *

 

I wait on my decision for a day, filling my time with light exercise in the gym. I hate to be inactive. Years of constant training for front line battle has made me crave burning muscles and gasping lungs, and I get restless without it. Peeta has been released from the medical centre on the condition that he not do anything strenuous, but I barely see him in the meantime. Finnick informs me that Annie visited him, and that they had a long talk, but doesn’t know what about. I assume it’s something about their shared time in the Capitol. I know it’s all Jo talked about at first, since it was the only thing that connected them when Peeta came back different.

But eventually I spot him in the cafeteria, and sit opposite him beside Leeg 2. Conversation is light, and soon she’s leaving, needed on a night run to District 9. And then it’s just Peeta and I, sat quietly together in a military base cafeteria. What I wouldn’t have given three years ago to have had him by me in Thirteen. Living so far underground and under constant threat of bombings would’ve been easier if I had had Peeta next to me. He was what kept me going in the first two arenas, and a war would have been no different.

“How’s your head?” I ask him, pushing my tray aside and leaving just a cup of water in front of me.

His hand comes up to touch where the bandage was, now nothing more than a thin line of tape.

“Good,” he says quietly. “Doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“They got you off painkillers?”

“I didn’t want to be on them anymore, so yeah. But I’m fine. Just no acrobatics for a few days.”

I smile. “Because that was always your talent.”

“Wrestling isn’t much different,” he says, and I lift an eyebrow, surprised.

“You remember that?”

“Yep,” he nods. “I think the explosion in Three did me some good, actually. Knocked a few things back into place.”

I nod slowly, and we lapse into silence. Again, I’m caught between telling him something about his past, about who he once was, and between keeping quiet. I’m all too aware of putting expectations on him, and making him feel like he’s failing.

“You were a good wrestler,” I finally murmur. “I only watched you a few times, but you were always good. And you beat your brothers, too. You had a lot of strength but you were fast, too. It was a winning combination, really.”

“My parents used to make us carry bags of flour in from the station,” Peeta says. There’s a distant look in his eyes, his mind caught in a memory. “It used to take hours. But it was good exercise.”

“You had much better odds in the Games,” I say. “I was just lucky they even had a bow. Without it… I would’ve just had to wait it out in the woods.” I look at the table. “I was lucky the arena was a woods.”

Peeta is chewing on the inside of his cheek as he stares at me. Then he blinks, his gaze coming back into focus.

“Do you still shoot?” he asks.

“Not as much. There were some hard winters during the war, and I’d hunt if we were in the wilds on a mission, help the squad out, but there’s not as much need anymore. I never liked hunting. It was just so Prim and my mother could eat.” I shrug. “Archery isn’t as fun when you’ve killed as much as me.”

Peeta doesn’t even flinch. “You’re good with guns, though.”

“Yeah,” my voice is flat. It’s not something to be proud of. Yet again another necessity.

“Prim had a goat, right?” he asks. He asks things like this sometimes, as if random memories have popped up, demanding to be confirmed as truth or fantasy right away, or they’ll disappear forever.

There’s a lump in my throat that hasn’t been there for a few years now, when it comes to talking about my sister. I just nod for a moment, and then clear my throat. “Yeah. Lady.”

“I remember her. In the Victor’s Village.”

“She used to terrorize Haymitch’s geese.”

“What happened to her in the end?”

“Died about a year ago. Old age. She’d had a good life, as far as goats go.”

Peeta grins at this. “No other goat can compare.”

“No,” I say, smiling. “Not even close.”

Peeta furrows his brow, picking at his food. I take a chance, given that the conversation has somewhat shifted towards District 12.

“Peeta,” I say. “I had an idea the other day. And you don’t have to say yes, of course you don’t, but I thought it would be nice. Or helpful, at least.”

“Just say it,” he says. He likes to get to the point now, not a fan of hyperbole.

“Do you want to go to Twelve?” I ask. The words hang in the air for a moment, before I have to fill it with more. “It would be a day trip a few hours at most. I just thought that since we’re dismissed until next week, it might be nice. We’d go with a traveller’s pass, on the hovercraft, walk around a bit. You can ask me questions and stuff. And I wanted to see Twelve as well. I haven’t been there for a long while and I’d like to know how it’s getting on.”

Peeta picks at his sleeve. His gaze flickers around. Eventually he nods. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” I exhale. “Okay. Cool. We could go tomorrow, if you’d like.”

“Okay.”

I smile.

“You think it’ll help me remember?” he asks. I can’t tell if he sounds hopeful, or as if he’s dreading it.

“I think it’s worth a try,” I reply. “And it’s your home, technically. Mine too. Even if it might not feel like it anymore. I think it’s important to remember where we come from.”

He flattens his hands on the table. “I’ll probably say something dumb.”

“You won’t—”

“It’ll make you upset.”

“I’m never upset with you, though, Peeta,” I reassure him. “I promise.”

He sighs. “Tomorrow morning we leave?”

“Yeah. I’ll check the hover timetable and comm you for which one we’ll catch.”

He nods. “Alright.”

I smile. “Alright.”

* * *

 

I’m at the District 5 citizen platform at eight thirty the next morning, half an hour early. I couldn’t sleep, too busy thinking about Twelve, about being there again, and with Peeta, this time, for the first time in coming up four years.

I sit in the terminal, what used to be a power station until they pulled down the cooling towers, and watch the hovercrafts and helicopters and jets coming into land or roaring off into the atmosphere. Time must get away from me, because the next thing I hear is my name, and feel a hand on my shoulder.

“Hey,” I say. Peeta is stood there, wrapped up against the mid-winter chill, his nose a little red from the walk over.

“It’s freezing,” he says, hunching up his shoulders.

“Twelve is even worse,” I say, standing and shouldering my bag. “Do you remember the snow we used to have? It would block off the trains for months at a time.”

“And then it would melt and the district would flood. I remember.”

We walk to the ticket booth, show our military IDs and collect our civilian-issue cross-district travel passes, and go to the little seating area to wait for our hovercraft. There are plenty of people milling around, most civilians just travelling around Panem. It’s still a novelty for everyone, the freedom to go pretty much wherever you want, and though there are still borders involved, Panem is a unified area, now, the districts only keeping their names for familiarity’s sake.

In the year since the Capitol fell and Panem began to recover, people have moved far and wide. In celebration of the end of the war, an expedition of civilians from Three, Seven, and Nine left what was for almost a century blocked off, considered the uninhabited, empty wilds of the north, and hiked to the top of a mountain. It was land not visited by humans for so long, the landscape wild and free, and the pictures sent back were broadcast across Panem. In every corner, there were people huddled around screens, watching their fellow citizens traverse a land that had been lost for a generation.

And now, Peeta and I sit. Five years prior, we were being reaped to fight to death for the entertainment of a powerful few, and now we are free to move, not bound by laws and borders. We can simply go where we want.

The hovercraft arrives on time, and we clamber on board along with the smattering of other passengers. Some recognise us, but they don’t say anything, and we can sit quietly in the corner unbothered. I haven’t yet seen the public response to Peeta, given that the only people to have come into contact with him who aren’t military personnel are the odd civilian who happened to stumble upon him. People know he’s alive, but he’s largely been confined to military settings. This is the first time since we found him that he’s just going through Panem as himself. I wonder if he’s glad to have me beside him or not.

The journey takes almost an hour, and it’s uneventful. We stand to look through the window at the passing landscape, a convoluted mix of war-scarred land, shapeless human settlements, and, increasingly as we get closer to Twelve, forest-covered mountains.

“Are you nervous?” I ask Peeta. A bolt of white sunlight cuts across his face, making his skin translucent.

He blinks, pupils contracting. “Are you?”

I shrug. “A little.”

“Why?”

“I—I don’t know what we’ll find.”

He holds my gaze for a moment, silent, unmoving, and then he looks away. I guess he doesn’t know what to expect either.

Finally the hovercraft lands, and we disembark. I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with cold air. It’s amazing how quickly it recovered after the mines were closed, how quickly the coal dust filtered away. I hadn’t realised how thick it really was, how it blanketed the district. Twelve has recovered well in the year since the war ended, a medicine factory springing up all shiny and new, the rubble being cleared, memorials being built. A lot of people did come back. It was their home after all. But the number of original residents is much smaller. I suppose, despite it all, it makes us closer. When you meet someone from Twelve, they remember you. No matter where you are, you acknowledge each other. The borders might be gone, but the meaning is still very much in our hearts.

We walk from the landing zone, built on the area behind the train station, which is where it’s always been, and into the new Merchant Quarters. It was bombed to dust and has now been completely rebuilt, mapping almost exactly onto the old town layout. When I tell Peeta this, he laughs lowly in his chest.

“I’d probably be able to get around blindfolded,” he says. “Even now.”

“I might,” I say. “I got pretty used to it because of my trade routes.”

“I was born and raised here,” Peeta says. “You don’t know all the secret alleyways.”

I smile at him. For some reason, him saying that makes him seem more settled than he has since I saw him on his knees in that house in Eight. Maybe it’s the mountain air. Maybe it’s the cobbles underfoot. Whatever it is, it’s the most familiar he’s felt for months.

We walk aimlessly around Twelve. We admire the shops, the buildings, the healthy, happy people who live and work and thrive here. It’s difficult, knowing that not long ago our people starved, and that so many of them were lost to the firebombs. And now there’s clean streets. Smiling children. It’s good, better than any future I could ever imagine, but it’s hard.

Peeta asks questions, but is quieter than I thought he’d be. He just takes a lot of things here, murmuring observations when memories come to him. By the time we reach the square, I’m feeling a little shaky and overwhelmed, remembering the Reapings, and whipping, and so many other bad things that happened here. Even with the Justice Building torn down, its presence looms.

“Are you okay?” Peeta asks. He looks a little uncomfortable, and I feel bad. I promised I wouldn’t get upset, but I can’t help my reaction.

“I’m fine,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets and rocking slightly on my heels. “It’s just a lot of memories, you know? And it all feels so far away.”

Peeta nods, considering. “For me… the only way I can explain it is that it’s like seeing a photo of a place, rather than actually being there. I remember lots of this, but sometimes I don’t remember _being_ here.”

I nod, biting my lip. “Yeah.”

Peeta eyes me, and then, hesitant, like he’s still deciding if it’s a good idea or not, he loops his arm through mine, putting his hand in his jacket pocket. It makes my heart race, both in surprise and in delight. Having him so close, _touching me_ —it’s what I’ve dreamed of. His warm, his solid presence; it’s still there. It never left. I lean into it, testing waters which I’ve already been swept into, and he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t tense up. It’s nice.

We walk arm-in-arm, and soon enough we’re walking up an all-too-familiar hill.

“This is where the bakery used to be,” I say lowly, and Peeta nods. I look up at him, trying to judge his reaction, but his face is as still as an iced-over pond. “There’s a memorial, now. To all the people who died in the bombing, in the war. Proper burial sites for the tributes.”

“I’d like to see it,” he says. I exhale. Okay then.

At the entrance to the memorial garden is a huge stone monument, carved into it the names of all the tributes from Twelve who died and our two solitary mentors. Peeta and I have our names etched near the bottom, inconspicuous. They wanted to build us statues, but I declined. I don’t want anything. I know Peeta never would. We’re as much a part of that history as the children killed before us.

We spend a little while there, just looking over the graves,

“They couldn’t identify everyone,” I say, looking at a stone which is blank but for the date of the bombing. “Some had tried to flee, others were still in their homes.”

“Is my family here?” he asks. I nod.

“Everyone but your father. He was at the station when they bombed the district. They never recovered his body.”

I wonder if I should sugar-coat it, if I should pick and choose my words. But then I decide that the both of us have had enough of that, of language designed to placate. And we know the facts. We don’t need artistry when speaking of war.

“There probably aren’t any surviving photos or anything, but there might be footage from their interviews. I can try and find them if you’d like.”

Peeta makes a non-committal humming sound and walks on.

We reach three headstones. Aymee Mellark, and her two sons, Fenton and Rye. Peeta stares at them for a long time, his mouth downturned, but his reaction measured. I don’t bug him, letting him think. There are flowers at all three, old, withered. There’s no one left to remember them.

“Fen had a wife,” Peeta says. “They were gonna have a kid.”

I don’t know what to say in response, so I don’t say anything. We walk a little further, and then back towards the entrance, the frosty grass crunching underfoot.

We walk through the town, towards what used to be the Seam. It’s much harder to distinguish between the two sections, now, the huge oak that helped mark the divide long since destroyed, and the houses built to be of equal standard. No more tumble-down shacks. Just solid, safe homes.

“They’ve left some of the fence up,” Peeta says. We’ve reached the meadow.

I look out to where the treeline is. I still get déjà vu, remembering the years I spent darting under the barbed wire, watching the wild forest sway behind the chain-link, hearing the intermittent buzz of electricity.

“Yeah,” I say. “To discourage wild animals. They’ve had mountain lions walking down the main street.”

Finally, we reach the Village. Intact, despite everything, left behind purposely. The houses were lived in by refugees at first, but now they sit empty. Maintained, but empty. Mine, Haymitch’s and Peeta’s cordoned off.

“Are we allowed in?” Peeta asks, looking at the caution tape flapping in the wind.

“They’re still ours,” I say, and he ducks under.

I follow him up the porch to his old village house, the wood creaking, and enter the pin I have memorised. The door swings open with a creak, and we step inside. It’s musty, dusty too, and completely silent.

“Wow,” Peeta says. “It’s exactly how I left it.”

“Pretty much,” I reply. “There’s boxes of stuff in the kitchen, though. From the bakery, stuff that survived. And things from before the Games.”

Peeta barely seems to be listening, taking the stairs two at a time. I hurry after him, a hand on the banister, and my fingers come away grey. I follow the scuffed footsteps in the hallway, still as pristine as the day it was built, given than we barely had time to live in either of our houses, and find Peeta stood in what was his old studio. There’s still an easel set up, a stool in front of it, and a table with tubes of paint and a palette covered in long-dried splotches of colour. And then, half-filling the space, are paintings, stacked against the wall in rows and covered with dust sheets.

“I remember painting here,” Peeta says.

“You were a good painter.”

“I used to spend hours in here. With the fumes. I would get all lightheaded and I think it made me think differently, because sometimes I wouldn’t remember why I’d painted something the way I had.”

I linger by the door. I’ve never been in here, not even before. Coming in now feels awfully intrusive.

“You painted the Games,” I tell him. “You showed me a few. There was a beautiful one of Rue.”

Peeta is still for a moment, and then it’s like he’s possessed, ripping the dust sheets free to expose the canvases. I begin coughing, and have to enter the room just to open a window and get some fresh air. Peeta begins sorting through his work, weeks upon months of the stuff.

“What are you looking for?” I ask, covering my nose with my hand in an effort to filter the dusty air.

“I know when I’ll find it,” he replies, and keeps on searching.

I watch him, and eye the paintings scattered this way and that over the floor. Lots of portraits, often of tributes or people seen in the Capitol, and people from Twelve, plenty of me.

“I was obsessed with you,” he comments, brow furrowing. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “My sister kept me from getting a big head.”

There are landscapes, too; the mountains surrounding Twelve, the gleaming metal and glass of the Capitol, or a tiny, winding lane in the Seam.

And then the arenas. Blood, gore, raw human fear. Shadows and half-animal, half- _other_ mutations chasing. Death and horror in brilliant clarity, rendered by Peeta’s hand in the dark hours of the night.

He barely even stops to look at them.

Finally, in the third row, several dozen frames in, he finds what he’s looking for.

He stills like a dead man, holding the painting and staring. I can’t see it, so I quietly walk over to stand just near him.

It’s a self-portrait.

Something about it is very vulnerable, self-conscious. Every stroke tentative, aware of painting exactly what is and not what the artist would like to see. It’s a quiet masterpiece. A simple blue-grey background, and Peeta, looking back at the viewer. Unflinchingly human.

I feel it in the pit of my stomach. A weight, heavy and melancholy. He must have painted it not long after the first games—he’s barely older than seventeen—while he was sat alone in this giant house. His golden hair is riotous, waves and errant curls falling about his ears, his skin pale, his lips a powdery pink. And his eyes—god, I thought I’d never see them again. I remember them, from the stage at the reaping, from the training centre, from the cave in the arena. Eyes that tell of the horror of growing up the way he did, of killing, of being willing to die.

It’s Peeta. The Peeta I should have loved. The Peeta who will never, ever return.

“This is what you were looking for?” I ask softly. Peeta nods. I put a gentle hand on his shoulder, a modicum of comfort.

“I never did any others,” he says. “This is the only self-portrait I’ve got.”

“It’s a good one.”

He releases a breath. “I just wanted to remember. Myself. See that it is me after all, that I’m seeing in the mirror. Sometimes it gets difficult.”

I feel a lump forming in my throat. “You’re a little bit older, but you’re still you,” I tell him. “No matter what.”

I think his silence is a sign that I’ve offended him at first, but then he leans his head against my hip and I smile.

“I don’t feel like it. It’s like there’s two people in here, both squashed in, fighting for space. I used to ignore the other guy because I was confused. I didn’t know who he was. I was scared of him. But I think he’s just me. And I’ve just forgotten.”

We look at the painting for a long while, and then I check the time and find that we’re going to need to head back to catch the hovercraft. Peeta decides to leave the painting with the others, and carefully stacks them again, covering them in sheets and closing the door firmly behind him when we leave. He’s quiet, but it’s a good thing. I can tell he’s thinking hard, that today has brought up a lot of questions, but a lot of answers, too.

We don’t speak on the way to the platform, and only then does Peeta address me, asking if I want a hot drink from the kiosk beside the ticket booth. Then we sit and drink our steaming coffees, huddled under the awning.

Finally the bell sounds and we stand and move over to the loading area, watching the hovercraft come into land. They’ve always reminded me of giant insects, great buzzing grey things. Air rushes past us just before the turbines turn off, ruffling our hair and clothes. I pull my braid back over my shoulder, tuck flyaway strands of hair behind my ear, and find Peeta staring at me.

“What?” I say, wiping my mouth in case I have coffee foam on my lips.

Peeta says nothing, just reaches out to me, grazing his fingers down my braid, twisting the strands at the end. It’s a quiet, tender gesture, meaningless to most, but I can’t help but think of the arena, how it felt to watch him watching me as we prepared to eat those nightlock berries and end it all.

It upsets me, because Peeta isn’t going to make that connection, and I spend the rest of the ride home hiding my tears. By the time we touch down in Five, though, I can’t help it.

“It’s not you,” I whisper, desperate to reassure him. “Thank you for coming with me today, Peeta.”

He nods, and I wrap my arms around myself and walk away, leaving him stood alone on the platform.


	25. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gale is a dick, but not like, a total dick.

Visiting District 12, his home, is a lot. He remembers more than he expects to, flashes hitting him one after another, and he has to admit that having Katniss there with him is a godsend.

It settles him a little. To see the place where his childhood home sat, to see where Katniss was born and raised, to see the Village and the square and all the progress that has been made after it was all destroyed. It makes him sure that he can get past this. That his existence doesn’t start and end on Macar’s table.

All those months after he left the city, dipping in and out of districts, and he never went to Twelve. Perhaps he would have done, given enough time, if he hadn’t seen his face on those screens, listing him as missing, as a person of interest, and decided to hand himself in.

He can’t help but wonder, though, if he would’ve remembered. If, alone, he would’ve walked those streets, the new, semi-familiar, quasi-copy of the old District 12, and remembered. Or would he have passed through with a sense of déjà vu and nothing more, and walked on, a ghost?

* * *

 

“How was the trip?” asks Jo when she swings her legs over the bench to sit with him in the cafeteria. She smells faintly of pine, and her hair is slicked back over her head.

He thinks for a moment. About the crack of ice beneath his feet, about the dust motes swinging through the week winter air in his house in the Village, about the smooth bumps of thickly-laid, indulgent layers of paint on canvas. It all seems to nice, now. Compare to everything since. He’d give anything to be back in that house, to be that mildly fractured young man again, and not a broken and pieced-together-wrong twenty-two year old he now is.

But if he did, he would’ve yet to have met Jo and Finn and Annie and Rigg and kind people like doctors from this side of the war and civilians like Marta and Danny—he should get in contact with them, let them know he’s okay—and maybe once he had things would’ve been different. Perhaps he would’ve found himself on a different path, and Katniss might have been killed early into the Quell, or he might have killed Finn or—or—

Or perhaps this is how everything was meant to be. How it _had_ to be.

“It was good,” he murmurs, looking down at his food.

“You visit the memorial?”

“Yeah,” he nods.

Jo speaks through a mouthful of food. “I went with Gale a little while back. Pretty upsetting. But nice that you’ve got it.”

“You don’t have one in Seven?” he asks, and she shakes her head.

“Well, sort of. But it burned down. During the war. They say they’ll make a new one but money is tight, you know. Not as much funding going towards that.”

“How did our memorial get built, then?”

“Katniss gave a lot of money for it. Most of it, actually. And Effie and Haymitch too.”

Peeta nods. That sounds about right.

They eat in companionable silence, for the most part, except for Jo pointing out people in the mess hall; someone with a questionable haircut (she claims it’s Capitol fashion lingering on), someone with a double portion, someone who’s about to slip and land on their ass.

He can’t stop thinking, though. About that painting of himself, of Katniss, of everything and everyone he once thought so much about. They’re proof that he was a person who had fears and hopes and loves so far beyond the one’s he now has. Now, he fears the crackle of electricity, the pinch of needles, and dark, echoing chasm of his own mind, if he lets it speak to him. He doesn’t know if he’s quite yet capable of the last two, though perhaps that in itself is hope. That he doesn’t quite yet know. No finality. Just possibility.

Before the war, he knew he felt that there were a limited amount of possibilities. He grew up knowing that he might be reaped, and either win but more likely be slaughtered. He knew that if he aged out in one piece, he’d end up inheriting the bakery, only if his older brothers didn’t marry into another trade. He’d expected to marry a Merchant girl, no matter what his heart yearned for—who is heart yearned for—and if he was lucky he’d lead a happy life, with children of his own, who might then be reaped, too.

So there was a limit, to what he might do. To what he might be able to do. His freedom was always tethered to something else, and therefore never free.

And now? Now that the city has fallen and the country has begun to rebuild, is he free? Are any of them free? Certainly freer than before, but now the people were tied to war. To rebuilding after so much destruction. It would take a lifetime or more to get it back to some semblance of normality, if normality could even be defined.

But rebuilding was better than pulling down. Rebuilding meant something had fallen for a reason.

He doesn’t know what it was that prompted him to put his arm through Katniss’, to loop them together like he did. He just did it. And after months and months of doing things without really thinking and for doing so many _bad_ things, this was good. He could trust his brain enough to go on autopilot for a second, if it meant things like that.

And being close to her like that was nice. It felt right. He knows that he once loved her more than his own life. That he was dramatic enough to be that way at such a young age. And that now, she loves him back. Or, at least, the old him. He’s already had time to question it, to turn it over and inside-out, to figure out whether he feels guilty, if he does things like smile at her and tell her jokes and fling his body in front of an on-coming truck to save her just to be nice, or if he feels indebted. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t.

He likes Katniss. He does. It’s different, now, but he can see why he liked her before. She’s kind and stubborn and hardy and she led a revolution, so it must tick all of the subconscious boxes he has buried deep down in his head. What she sees in him will continue to baffle him, and not just because he can’t remember exactly how he was before.

But being loved by Katniss Everdeen isn’t so bad after all. Things could certainly be worse. He’ll just have to tell her, and soon, that he doesn’t want her waiting for him. _What a martyr, right?_ He just doesn’t want her to go on hoping and hoping and hoping for something that will never be. He might not ever feel like that again, about anyone. He might have a psychotic break and shoot himself with his own gun for all he knows. Waiting for him is a lot, even for a girl like her, and he knows how frustrated people can get when things don’t go to plan.

He’d like to stay her friend. He’d like people to like him. To visit him for supper. To wish him happy birthday.

He furrows his brow. “Jo,” he says. “When’s my birthday?”

Johanna clearly isn’t expecting this, and a smile flickers over her face. “I don’t actually know the exact date,” she says, vaguely apologetic. “You gotta ask Everdeen or someone else.”

“Thanks,” he says.

“I think it’s around winter time,” she offers. “Hope we haven’t missed it, right?”

“Right.”

“Mine’s November,” she says. “Twenty-first. Already gone.”

“We didn’t celebrate.”

She shrugs. “I never have.”

They walk back to the barrack together, through the twilight.

“Katniss was upset when we left. After we arrived back here she ran off.”

“It’s not you, Peeta. I doubt it. It was probably just seeing her home district, and especially if you were there with her. It’s a lot.”

He hums, unsure.

“Did I really love her like everyone says?”

Jo stops in the middle of the street to look at him. She looks uncomfortable, and he knows she doesn’t really like talking about touchy-feely stuff, but maybe in the half-dark she feels a little braver.

“Look, I didn’t know you for long. Or her. But I saw you on TV before the Quell, and they played clips of your Games then. And I was there on the beach. So yeah, I’m pretty sure you did.” Her eyebrows draw together. “I don’t wanna freak you out but yeah, you liked her a lot. And I think she liked you, too, but she was too dumb to see it, and probably thought it was no use if she was just going to die like a few days later.”

He shoves his hands in his pockets to hide his twitching fingers.

“Why do you ask?” Johanna continues, and he kicks at the ground for a minute.

“I don’t know. I just wanted to be sure.”

“You don’t know if you can trust us lot, or your own head. I get it.”

He nods. She does.

And then his words bubble out of him like an idiot, and he feels embarrassed even as he says them.

“She’s pretty,” he says. “Very pretty, but. I don’t know.”

Jo doesn’t miss a beat. “You think she’s hot?” At his grimace she laughs and rephrases. “You think she’s _attractive_?”

“Yeah.”

“But…?”

“I feel weird about it now. She’ll expect one thing and she’ll get something else.”

“You weren’t superficial before,” Jo says with the manner of a person observing wild animals. “Fascinating.”

“Jo,” he says, already wanting the world to swallow him up. “I’m trying here. It might not look like it from the outside, and it doesn’t always feel like it from in here, but I am remembering things. And I won’t be the same but I won’t kill anyone, either.”

“A balance we all wish to strike,” she says airily, looking away down the street. Then she sighs. “Well, lover boy, I don’t know what to say. You gotta figure this out on your own.”

He follows her gaze, and sees Katniss and Gale walking into the barracks, illuminated by the light of the building opposite. He looks back at Jo.

“I’m going to talk to Gale,” he says, the idea sour in his mouth, almost as sour as Johanna’s expression.

“No sense of self-preservation,” she comments, walking on, making him follow. “Guess you’ve haven’t changed completely.”

* * *

 

By the time they reach the barrack common space, Katniss is nowhere to be seen, and Gale is lounging on one of the lumpy couches that were dragged in to make the space a little more homely, flipping a stack of cards in his hands. Peeta approaches, his heart thumping, but his feet refusing to stop or change direction.

What he knows is this: that Gale and Katniss were good friends, childhood friends, before the Games. That they survived together. That the Games pulled them apart but Gale admitted that he loved her. In the three years of war and rebuilding since, he’s noticed how their relationship holds the softness of two people who grew up together, but is distant, like there’s a wall between them that’s way too high to climb.

He still has questions, though. Of course he does.

“Gale,” he says, internally grimacing at the flatness in his tone, but to his credit, Gale doesn’t seem to notice or care.

“Hey,” he says, sitting up slightly and setting the cards in a pile on the table. “How’s Twelve looking?”

“Shiny.”

Gale’s eyebrows twitch. “Yeah. Bit of soap and water was all it really needed, huh?”

He sits down on the other side of the low table.

“Wanna play?” the other man asks, and then he’s splitting the cards and the game begins. “You wanted to talk to me or something?”

“Yeah,” Peeta says, shuffling his deck. There’s about thirty seconds of silence as he figures out how to best structure what he wants to say, and then he just says it and logic seemingly goes out of the window.

“I just wanted to ask what’s going on with you and Katniss. You were friends before. And you seem to be friends now. I was just confused.”

Gale’s face is impassive. “I care about Catni—Katniss. A lot. I can’t _not_. But things are different now.” He sighs, scuffing his hand through his dense black beard. “I’ve got other responsibilities, other… interests. But we’re still friends. We’ve still got each other’s back.”

Peeta nods. He sets down the rest of his cards and wins.

“I was… idiotic,” Gale continues, already reshuffling. “I was an idiot towards her. We were always hot-headed with each other, but… I’d just watched by best friend go through two Games and all the bullshit to do with that, and I felt like she was being stolen away from me. And then there was the war and everything and I let it get to my head and ignored her when really what she needed was a friend. I realised a little too late for us to be like we were, though, if I’m honest, I don’t think either of us _want_ to go back.”

Peeta is forced to pick up a card from the deck.

“We both had our reasons for what we did. And we talked about it. We’ve dealt with it. We’ve moved on, or rather, _I’ve_ moved on.” He looks up, grey eyes meeting blue. “I’m an adult, now. I can admit when I was wrong. Plus, I kind of think she’s always had you in her periphery. From the start.”

Peeta feels warmth roll through him at this, a slight spark deep in his chest.

“You remember the first time you met?”

“School?” Peeta guesses.

“Yeah. First School. She’s told me this story a thousand times because you’d told her it once. Your father had pointed her out on your first day, saying he was going to marry Dalilah—Mrs Everdeen—but that she married a miner instead, because when he sang, the whole forest stopped to listen.”

Peeta nods, the memory becoming clearer with every syllable. “Yeah, I remember now.”

“Bet she never told you what her dad said to her, though.”

Peeta shakes his head. Never.

“Her dad pointed to you, and said that you had the kindest father in the world, and that if Katniss was smart, she’d be friends with you from day one.”

“Did she?” Peeta furrows his brow, trying to recall even a whisper of a memory.

Gale sits back, his expression darkening a little. “No. People didn’t mix like that back then. Even kids.”

A few exchanges of cards, and then, “Why’d you ask?” Gale says, curious.

“People keep telling me about how much I love her.”

“Do you think you still do?”

Peeta rolls his shoulders. It’s not that it’s the possibility of _love_ that’s difficult to conceptualise in his head, it’s the possibility of a lot of emotions.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I still don’t feel settled in myself, so…”

“You feel guilty?”

“A little. I try not to be. But I don’t want to disappoint her. I don’t want her to wait.”

“She’d wait for a stationary train,” Gale says, eyes rolling. “She tell you how she feels?”

“Yeah.”

Gale hums. “Tough, huh?”

“A little.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, you’re doing good. You are,” he repeats, when Peeta narrows his eyes at him. “It’s good to have you back where you belong. Us District 12 folk have gotta stay together.”

 _Us District 12 folk_. It’s nice to be part of a collective.

“Did you think I was dead too?” Peeta asks, instead of saying thanks, making his appreciation clear.

“Yeah, I did,”

“Sorry.”

Gale lifts a brow. “Sorry?”

“I keep coming back.”

Gale’s laugh is loud and surprising. “Like a bad smell,” he says, and Peeta can’t help but smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check out my pinterest page for the board i created for this fic @saturnblushes


	26. Katniss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just love love, okay <3

There’s nothing more confusing, more tilt-the-ground weird than walking into a room that contains a conversing, a _laughing_ Gale Hawthorne and Peeta Mellark. And it even looks civil. Peeta might have that haunted thousand-yard stare in his eyes that I doubt he’ll ever be able to shake, but his smile is genuine, his tight shoulders marginally more relaxed, and Gale looks at ease, no hard feelings.

I decide not to intervene, sweeping into the room and out in one smooth motion, and find myself at the training centre instead, running and running and running on the treadmill. It’s quiet at this time of night, and the lights are dimmed to conserve energy given the spotty grid connections to the turbines and solar panels in Eight.

I run until my lungs scream, and then run fast, just wanting to block out everything behind the sound of my feet hitting the spinning belt. That’s why I don’t realise an hour has passed, or that Peeta has appeared in the weights section, where he’s lifting at least four times my bodyweight with ease. I slow to a run, and then a jog, and finally a walk, and then hop off, gasping for breath. I drain half a bottle of water and dab at my sweaty skin, just watching Peeta lift, watching the muscles beneath.

I don’t feel any guilt for doing so. I’ve seen him watching me train before. Just because things are different, doesn’t mean all the changes are bad.

When he sets the weights in the rack and stretches his arms above his head, I call over.

“You trying to break a record?”

He looks up and over, his hair a dark golden in the low light, damp with sweat.

“I thought I already set the base record,” he says, and I smile. “Can I walk back with you?”

“Sure,” I say, and wait for him to collect his things. Then we climb the steps to the street, the cold biting at our red skin, our breath pouring into the air.

“You saw me and Gale talking?” he asks. I blink, He doesn’t miss a thing.

“Yeah. Sorry for kind of… scurrying away.”

“It’s fine.”

“You seemed to be getting on.”

“I think he feels like an asshole, holding a grudge against a guy who had his memories tortured out of him.”

I swallow, still trying to get used to how casually he brings up his time in the Capitol. “What did you talk about?”

“Twelve. You. Me. Him. Quite the complicated romantic strife back home, it seems.”

“That’s what the Capitol wanted people to believe. A love triangle. That’s all they cared about.” I shrug. “They can believe what they want.”

“Right,” Peeta says lowly. “They weren’t there, were they? They didn’t know.”

“Don’t act like something sordid was going on,” I scold, and a flash of a smile flickers over his lips.

“No, it was a good talk. Reminded me of some stuff. It all helps.”

“Are you feeling better? You seemed a little rocky last week.”

“I’ve been going to the doctors. And the therapist is helping a lot.”

“You barely talk about it.”

“It’s not exactly a good topic.”

“I guess.”

“I’m doing alright. It’s still hard. I’m still confused, but I feel like I’m getting better at… reading people. I wasn’t good at that before. I found it difficult, connecting. Now it’s getting easier.”

“Good.”

“Dr Wells said my recovery would be slow at first, and then would keep speeding up and feel really sudden, and then plateau a bit.”

I feel the overwhelming urge to hug Peeta, then, but I know it’d be pushing my luck, so I instead touch his elbow to get him to stop in a pocket of darkness in-between the street lights. His eyes glow in the dark, reminding me of the Quell arena. The thought distracts me so much that he has to say my name to bring me back to the present.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“It’s okay,” he says softly. “What did you want to say?”

“That I—that I’m grateful. That despite everything, you trusted me enough, any of us enough. You did so much for me before, Peeta. You were willing to put your life on the line over and over, and then Macar, and then this. I’m just glad that you’re here.”

I smile at him, but his face is difficult to read. The irony.

“Do you love Gale?” he asks, seemingly out of the blue. I take it in my stride.

“I think I did. Not the way he wanted though. I don’t think I ever could’ve been able to, either.”

Peeta considers my words, and for a minute it’s almost like he was during the Victory Tour, when he was always thinking, always planning on how to act, on how to convey how he felt to the families of the fallen tributes without getting them or us into trouble. It’s comforting, in an odd way, to know that in some form, he’s still that thoughtful person, even if the strategic, colder side is more evident.

I had always distrusted people who hid parts of themselves, whose words didn’t match their actions, but never with Peeta. Maybe it’s because he did what he promised, always, that I never suspected that he was hiding anything.

“Why, did he tell you I was head over heels with him?” I ask.

“No,” Peeta shakes his head. “He said he’d apologised and that you’d always have each other’s backs but that there was nothing there for the two of you.”

“I want to clarify that his ‘apology’ took about two years and involved grovelling and stubborn admission that he’d been stupid,” I say. Peeta grins, all teeth.

“He said you were stubborn,” he says.

“I bet.”

“That you were both as bad as the other.”

“Yeah.” I smile, thinking back to the endless arguments we’d have in the woods, whispered and hissed as to not scare off prey. “Yeah we were. Still are.”

Peeta releases a breath.

“I think I need you to be stubborn with me,” he says. “I’m not sure many other people would be so patient.”

I’m touched by the statement, but patient is a word I’ve never had associated with me in my life. “You’re the patient one,” I tell him. “Always were.”

“We’re well matched, then.”

“Something like that.”

“You seem upset.”

“This is just reminding me of a talk we had on the train, once. On the Tour. You were mad because I’d been keeping secrets and Haymitch said we deserved each other.” Peeta’s eyes don’t leave mine. I have to look away.

“We found each other again,” he says. It’s like a punch to the gut that I want to receive over and over again.

“Too bad for you. I have a habit of pushing people away. Or losing them.”

I step back and begin to walk away, but Peeta catches my arm. It burns my bare skin.

“You’re not responsible for other people leaving,” he says. “Sometimes they just do.”

“What are you trying to say?” I ask.

“That I’m not going to leave. Not willingly.”

“Only because you don’t remember the bad things about me. How selfish I am.”

I feel terrible as soon as I’ve said it, but Peeta doesn’t seem to take it as a slight. He just rubs his thumb over the skin above the crook of my arm.

“I’ll just have to learn them all over again,” he says. “But thanks for giving me a head start.”


	27. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> basically Peeta needs to listen to everyone else bc it's obvious as heck

He knocks on Dr Well’s door at his allotted time, the same time, 10 am, twice a week unless he’s away on a mission. Dr Wells is nicer than Dr Murdoch, more patient with him. When he asked to be taken off the medication that made him feel sleepy, she did so. She’s the reason he keeps taking the red pills and yellow pills she prescribed him.

“Medicine like this is difficult to come by, but I truly believe it’s worth it,” she had said, handing him the bottles. “They’ll help you feel more stable. Help you sleep.”

He tried not taking the red one, not liking the shape of it on his tongue, but he would end up pacing until the early hours, unable to sleep, so in the end he took it and dealt with it. Sleep was more important. Together they give him a delicious sense of flatness, a steady tone in his head that makes him feel normal.

“How are you today, Peeta?” Dr Wells asks, smiling at him. “I heard you visited your home district with Ms Everdeen.”

He nods, and tells her about it. She nods and nods and asks the right questions at the right moments, and it makes him feel reassured. That he’s doing alright.

Dr Wells said before that she was proud of his progress, that his recovery had been remarkably swift. When he’d ask for the unsaid ‘but’, she’d shaken her head.

“But nothing. Our tests come back clear. Apart from the obvious damage from the venom and the experimentation, you’ve bounced back so well.”

He still felt that there was a lingering _but_.

_But we’re just waiting for you to snap. Just waiting for you to put your gun in your mouth or turn it on Katniss Everdeen, the mockingjay, the face of the rebellion, without even stopping to think._

He hasn’t heard the monster for a long while now. Getting on for three months. He can sense its presence, deep below, in the murky shadows of his mind, but it’s not like it was before, when it loomed and lunged and scratched at the bone above his eyes. Now it’s quiet, curled up and dormant. He doesn’t mind room and board, as long as it doesn’t wake up again.

“And how did that make you feel?” Dr Wells is asking him. He’s just told her about seeing the graves of his mother and brothers.

“Empty,” he says. “I remember them. I remember that I loved my brothers. But it’s like I’m looking at a photograph, or at a video. I know who they are and why they’re significant, but I’m separate from them. There’s a gap.”

Dr Wells nods. “That’s to be expected. Do you feel guilty?”

He thinks for a moment. “No. Should I?”

“Only if you feel you’ve done something wrong.”

“I—I didn’t. But I should’ve let them stay with me. In my house. They would’ve lived, then. And they were my family. I should care.”

“I can tell that you do. It might not be in the way you think you should, but you care, Peeta. That’s very clear to me. You wouldn’t be talking about them at all if you didn’t.

It’s certainly something to think about.

“How about the paintings? You’ve said before that you felt confused about Katniss, that you didn’t want to upset her but that you couldn’t quite trust that you’d ever be able to feel about her the way you did before. Did the paintings change that?”

He scrubs his face with his hand, embarrassed. “It told me I had a weird obsession,” he says, and Dr Wells grins. “Katniss said it wasn’t a big deal but… it was a little strange.”

“Do you feel a pressure to be at that level again?”

“No. I don’t think she would want that.”

“What do you think she wants?”

He thinks about their talk. About being there for each other, no matter what. He thinks about his hand on her arm, how soft her skin was beneath his fingers. He thinks about the scar across her cheek that he remembers was the tail of a whip. He thinks about the flames that lick across her arms that he can see when she’s wearing something with short sleeves. He thinks about how she said she was happy to have him back, no matter if he wasn’t the man she once knew.

“She said she was just glad I was safe,” he mumbles.

“Do you trust that she’s telling the truth?”

Trust is a word he’s being toying with for some time, now. Trust is difficult to build after… after everything, and he’s been wary that he’s been putting on a front for the others, ever since he was picked up, acting like he trusts them all. But he doesn’t. He’s always looking for the flaw in the mirage, the shimmer. The weakness. It’s become clear to him that these people… these rebels… they’re strong. They’re strong people, alone and together. But there are weakness in them all. If someone knew each and every one, it would bring them down in one fell swoop.

That’s their strength, then. All their fractures are different. No one master key to break them all down.

Is he the same? Are his fractures so deep, so many, that to exploit one is to bring the entire structure tumbling? He knows it’s the truth. That it makes him vulnerable. But somehow he wants this vulnerability. To keep it makes him human. It makes him some version of who he once was.

The boy who was kind, who was gentle, and who wished to die for the girl he loved. The boy who died on a metal table, with the crackling of electricity and the grey, zigzagging swirl of static rolling across his eyes. The boy who hid, for all his life, the rage and might that rolled beneath. He would empty it into a punching bag, into a ball of dough on a floured countertop, and finally into fighting Macar and the venom and the monster until they couldn’t get to him, because he’d hidden himself too deep.

It took a lot to get it to come out, and even then, it wasn’t the fully-formed mutation the city had wished for. It was weak, deprived of sunlight. He had let it die.

So does he trust Katniss? Yes. Yes he does. He knows this. Peeta Mellark trusts Katniss Everdeen. He also has some modicum of assurance that Haymitch and Finnick will do him no harm. The others, he’s not so sure about. They would do him harm to save themselves, and he has no qualms about that. He can’t blame them.

But trust is a fragile thing. And owed to no one.

“Yes,” he finally says. “I know she cares about me.”

“Do you care about her?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t want her to get hurt.”

Dr Wells nods. She does a lot of nodding.

“I know I’m going to hurt her though.”

Dr Wells’ eyes narrow slightly. “How so?”

She must think he’s talking about the monster, about the possibility that he will snap, that he’ll put his gun in his mouth or turn it on—

It’s a fair assumption. But it’s wrong. Even the monster would never turn on her.

“She’s going to be waiting. And I’ll never get better. Not like she wants. Not like everyone expects. And I’m going to hurt her because I don’t even really remember who it is she’s waiting for.”

Dr Wells offers him a smile. She looks around through the reinforced glass of her window. She told Peeta once that she’d grown up underground, and that windows were still a novelty. He replied that he knew something of being deprived on sunlight on your skin.

“She’s not stupid, Peeta,” says Dr Wells.

“I know that, I—”

“She isn’t waiting for the Peeta she last saw in the arena. She’s just waiting for you. _As you are._ That girl has spent her lifetime waiting. She hasn’t always known it. But she’s always been waiting. For the right moment to make a move, for the right person to help her. And it’s not your fault if she keeps waiting for you. Because I can guarantee that the only thing she’ll wait for is for you to be happy. It’s in her nature.”

He furrows his brow.

_“It’s human nature,” says one of the younger doctors. I push against the restraints, but their solid. I glance around the room, looking for a way out. Trying to think the way Katniss would, looking for new solutions, for unorthodox weapons, for anything._

_“It’s in_ his _nature,” the doctor continues, completely ignoring me. I know it’s because they know he can’t get free, but still, it’s unsettling. These doctors… their plans. They must have been thinking about this since the first Games, tracking us in the Training Centre. “He’s not a killer, but he has killed. It’s a human trait, not learned behaviour.”_

_“Fuck you,” I snap, half rolling my eyes, half laughing at them. If they think I’m going to go easy, they have another thing coming._

_The room is quiet, the temperature dropping. The doctors look down at me. I try to ignore the ribbon of fear that curls through me._

_“He’ll do just fine, I think,” says another doctor. I can hear the smile in his voice._

“Peeta?” says Dr Wells, and Peeta blinks. He feels nauseous. It’s the clearest memory he’s had for some time, and one from so long ago, from so early on into his time in the city. It’s like being plunged into ice water. He chases the feeling, the mind-set of this earlier version, who’d only had to survive one meal a day and two weeks in a cell at that point, but he’s grasping at tendrils.

“I’m fine, Dr Wells,” he says. He smiles at her. “I just… remembered something.”

“Something important?”

“Yes.”

Dr Wells sits back in her chair, ponders him for a moment. And then she scribbles something down. Peeta pulls at the thread on his cuff, and it finally comes free, beginning to unravel. He exhales. Good.

* * *

 

He’s in a daze when he leaves the office. That isn’t unusual, but when a few hours have passed and he’s drifting his way into the barracks with little clue of how he got there, it’s a little concerning.

He sits on his bed and listens to the sounds of District 5 around him. He listens to the clock ticking on the wall. He stares at the cracked paint. And then he grabs a jacket and his boots and goes back out into the street. The barracks are deserted, most everyone in the mess hall for supper, and he knows they’ll wonder where he is, but he has something he needs to do.

There’s a public phone at the bottom of the street. For barrack use only, useless given the Comms and the other communication methods available, but he wants to use it. He punches in the first number that comes to him and waits for an answer.

On the last ring, the line connects.

“Hello?” says a gruff voice. Peeta blinks for a moment.

“Hello.”

Silence, and then, “Peeta? Is that you, boy?”

“Yes.”

More silence. “How are you? How late is it in Five?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Peeta says. “I—I didn’t think.”

“No, no, it’s not a problem. I’m just surprised, kid. Didn’t expect you of all people to be calling me.” There’s a pause. “Was there something you wanted to ask?”

“Uh, yes. There is. I can call back if this is a bad time.”

“What is it?”

Peeta scratches the blunt edge of his nail over the metal rectangle that houses the phone. He listens to the crackle of the line. “Did she fight for me?” he finally asks.

There’s no need for clarification. There’s very little else he and the old mentor talk about these days.

“Yes. And she always will.”

Peeta nods.

“Is there something wrong?” Haymitch asks.

“Why? Everyone else thought she was crazy. They thought I was dead. _You_ thought I was dead.”

There’s a faint coughing sound at the other end of the line. “Yeah, we were surprised kid. It’d been a long time and no one had heard a thing about you or from you. The buildings we’d figured you’d been held in were destroyed and we figured you might have been somewhere in the rubble.”

“I would’ve done the same though. Right? I would’ve believed that she was out there?”

“If things were different. Yes. I don’t doubt it.”

“Okay.”

“Is everything alright on your end? Why are you calling me about this all of a sudden?”

“Dr Wells said—”

“Therapy, ah,” Haymitch murmurs over the top.

“—said that it was in her nature to wait. Katniss, that is. That she was waiting.”

“I wouldn’t use that word, exactly. She’s stubborn. She’s—she can be very… focused. And she loves you, kid. Of course she was going to keep believing you were out there. I think she has more hope than a lot of us.”

Peeta swallows. “Okay.”

“She told me she had a feeling. I guess I just thought she’d gone a little crazy.”

“I’m never going to be able to make her happy.”

“Don’t you say that,” Haymitch says, and there’s a tough of real anger in his tone, frustration at Peeta’s words. “Stop saying things like that. She’s happy already. That you’re here. So am I—” He cuts off for a moment, and when he continues, his voice is thick. “You’re here, kid. That’s all that matters. And just by looking after yourself, by being at her side—that’s more than she could ever ask for. You have to believe that.”

“I’ve done things… I should be in prison. I shouldn’t be here.”

“What you did—kid, Jesus, it’s bigger than you. They were using you. What you did wasn’t for no reason. And we’ve all killed. The Capitol relied on the fact that most people would kill to save themselves. It doesn’t make you any better or any worse just because you did what was expected. It’s never your fault.”

“Where did you learn that?”

“From someone who cares a great deal about me,” Haymitch grumbles. “Even someone like me can accept that.”

Peeta hunches his shoulders. He feels small. Childlike. “I can’t be the person I was.”

“More of that old Peeta has remained that you realise, kid. You don’t know it because you don’t remember all of it what it was like. But I can see it. She can see it. Everything else… it’s not a problem. She’d never view you as a burden. Never view you as a threat. She’d go to the ends of the earth for you.”

Peeta looks down the street. This is a day of revelations. He seems to be having more of those recently.

He can see people walking, coming out of the mess hall. He spots Katniss.

“She already has,” he murmurs.


	28. Katniss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love the beach and love love and love dancing, too.  
> also District 4 is a great district and it just goes to show that the sea is good for everyone and that you should really care about protecting it. finnick would want you to.

I’ve become used to Peeta asking me questions. They take me off guard sometimes. Once he asked for clarification as to how Rue and Marvel died and it left me unable to sleep that night, haunted by it all.

But when he approaches me just outside Command-Five, when he’s dressed in tactical gear, and pulls me aside, I know to expect a barrage of queries. It’s Friday. Yesterday was Thursday, one of his two scheduled weekly sessions with Dr Wells. It’s good for him, but it always kicks up a lot of memories and a lot of clarification on the facts.

Whereas before he’d toe around, trying to use his words the best way possible, now he tends to come out and say what he’s thinking. I brace myself.

“Why didn’t I let my family stay with me? In the house I won?”

I blink. Oh. I wrack my brain. That time seems like a million years ago.

“You offered. They stayed for a few days. But then you had an argument with your mother and they left to look after the bakery.”

Peeta frowns. “Did I give them money?”

“I think so. I don’t know what they did with it if they took it.”

“Why?”

“It was complicated. And you didn’t tell me much about it, Peeta. We weren’t talking regularly after the first Games.”

Peeta shakes his head. “Complicated,” he murmurs, sounding amused. “My mother beat me. And my father stood by.”

This hurts me, just hearing it. I can’t imagine how he feels. I’d always seen Mr Mellark as a gentle man, and I don’t doubt that he was, but he was a coward too. Equally as much a bully as his wife for letting that go on.

“I don’t think—” I begin to say, but Peeta speaks over me.

“He stood by,” he says flatly, and I see his expression beginning to close off. “He _stood by_ and let her…” he trails off, his throat bobbing. Then he looks at me, his gaze sharp. “How do you not get _angry_?” he asks, spitting the words out.

“At what?”

“At everything! At your mother. At your family. At me. At everyone!”

I hold his gaze for a moment. “I’ve been angry. At everyone,” I say. “I still am angry.”

“You don’t look it.”

“I’ve moved on. Dwelling on it… wasn’t good for me.”

He chews on the inside of his cheek. I decide to clarify.

“I’ve always been angry, Peeta. But I learnt to hide it early on. My father said I had to or we’d get in trouble. And during the war… there wasn’t time for me to be mad like I wanted. So I channelled it elsewhere.”

“Into what?”

“Into being the Mockingjay.”

“That was Coin’s idea.”

I wonder for a moment how he knows about Coin. She was dead a year before he came back. “In a roundabout way,” I tell him, a small smile forming on my lips. “Madge Undersee, the mayor’s daughter. We were friends. And she gave me the pin. Cinna made it a symbol, but Madge was the start of it all.”

“I remember Madge,” Peeta says. “She was nice.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “She was.”

Peeta pushes his shoulders back, lifting his chin. He looks like he’s always worn battle armour, like it’s a second skin.

“Do you regret being the Mockingjay?” he asks.

I look down the street as one of the armoured trucks approaches, ready to pick us up for a trip across the old border into Nine to help shift supplies.

“No,” I say. “I hated it at first. The image. The responsibility. Everyone was relying on me and at some points, I could barely drag myself out of bed. But I’m okay with it now. It was what the rebellion needed and I happened to be the face of it. If any symbol had to be chosen, I’m glad it’s the Mockingjay.”

Peeta hums. “They didn’t like it,” he says.

“The bird? No. It was a mistake on their part. A mutation they couldn’t control.” I shrug. “It seems fitting.”

Peeta nods. I smile at him, a small gesture, and watch him staring just past my shoulder, at the ground. He looks tired but settled. The horrible jumpiness that inhabited his skin at first, barely hidden by a layer of indifference, has dissipated, leaving behind a hardened shell. People have commented on it, asking if it’s weird for me. And while I agree that yes, it’s strange, since the Peeta I once knew was soft through and through, I can still see how the old him never left. Whether he realises it or not, I can tell it’s there, in the small actions, the quiet comments, the muted moments like these when he’s incredibly intense but kind, too.

It’s more than I could ever ask for. And I’m glad that I’m privy to it.

* * *

 

I must admit it comes as some surprise when I receive an invitation to Finnick and Annie’s wedding. It’s been three years of seeing the two of them together, of hearing Finnick’s longwinded stories about Annie and Rigg, and somewhere in the back of my mind I’d always known they hadn’t actually married, but it just seemed like they’d never been apart in the first place.

It’s to be a small event, but, as Finnick explains, the war has officially ended, and things have been much calmer, and Rigg is finally old enough to walk down the aisle with the rings without trying to eat them. I have a feeling the last factor is more important than the others.

We’re delighted, of course. Finnick and Annie have invited just a handful of their dearest friends for the ceremony in Four. Haymitch is asked to officiate, and Finnick takes great pride in explaining how the old man cried at the question before eagerly agreeing. Effie launches, of course, into research about the fashion of District 4, and takes the reigns out of the hands of the bride and groom to figure out the preparations herself.

“What are you actually doing yourself?” I ask once afternoon, about a week before the wedding, and Finnick laughs.

“Nothing. At this point, all Annie and I have got to do if make sure Rigg is in a good mood that day.”

A little while later, when I’m queueing for lunch an hour later than usual thanks to an overrun Command meeting, I spot Peeta in the kitchens themselves, talking to one of the cooks. It’s jarring to see him back in an environment I so used to relate him to. For a moment, it’s like I’m spotting him in the bakery again.

I take my food and sit down at an empty table, and after ten minutes or so, Peeta arrives with his own lunch.

“Complaining to the chef?” I ask as he sips from a cup of water. He looks like he always does, tight shoulders trying to shrink themselves despite their broadness, hair a mess on his head, but there’s a brightness in his eyes that I haven’t seen for a long time. It’s nice to see though, even if it can’t quite hide the thousand yard stare that is now a permanent fixture.

“What? No,” he shakes his head. “I—I got asked by Finnick and Annie to make them a wedding cake. I was asking the cook if I could use their kitchens. And if he would be able to help me out if I couldn’t remember how.”

“What’d he say?”

“He said he’d be happy to, but that it would have to be a simple design.”

“Yeah, I don’t imagine that fondant is easy to come by anymore.”

Peeta smiles faintly. “I don’t want to mess it up.”

“You won’t.”

“I might.”

“You could burn it and it would still look and taste better than anything I could ever dream of baking. You’ve got this, Peeta.”

He seems appreciative of my reassurance, and then launches into a series of questions about cake design. I’m pretty much useless, given that the only things I could ever afford were small, undecorated items like fruit cake or cheese buns. But I try my best to describe what I saw in the bakery window, and before long, Peeta is able to recall the things he made, the skill he had at his family’s trade.

I don’t see him until late the following day, when he enters the almost-empty barracks with a plate of golden-brown biscuits. They’re a treat for us all, and taste exactly how I imagined they would. Buttery, still warm on the inside, a faint hint of spice.

“This takes me back,” Gale says, smiling. “I always used to smell these when we went to trade.”

It’s a memory from a long-lost world but I cherish it as much as he does, and the glow on Peeta’s face proves to me that he’s just proud to have succeeded. We sit playing cards in the barracks for a good hour or two after everyone else has gone to bed, and he confides that he was worried he wouldn’t be able to figure out the recipe.

“It’s one that’s been in my family for generations, so I guess I couldn’t shake it, not really. I just… I just laid out all the ingredients and it all came back to me. It was weird. But nice.”

“You did a great job. The plate is empty.”

He looks at the dish sat on the side of the table. “It made me feel good.”

Just hearing him say that makes _me_ feel good. I smile at him and set down a card. “Don’t let us down with the wedding cake, then. We’re all expecting something great.”

* * *

 

A few days later, I’m stood in hangar 8 helping load a hovercraft for the trip to District 4 for the ceremony, and Johanna asks me where Peeta is. Before I can answer, he’s stepping out of an elevator, a large box in his hands, and walking towards us in a careful, controlled manner.

“Is that the cake?” Jo asks him once he’s close enough to hear, and he nods, still concentrating. Jo sticks out her leg to trip him and laughs when he shoots her a look, but we make it onto the hovercraft in one piece. When everyone is loaded and ready to go, it takes off, and we begin the short journey there, crossing over the rolling grain fields of Nine until we reach the deserts and beaches of Four.

Haymitch and Effie are there to greet the small group, looking tanned and happy. Effie starts tearing up right away, and only calms down when her makeup starts to run. We walk along the coast to their house, and it’s perhaps the most idyllic thing I’ve done my entire life. Simply walking across the sand in the sunlight, a slight chill in the air but still plenty warm that you can get away with a light jacket, with the people I care about most.

Peeta is entirely focused on the cake, and Haymitch directs him to the pantry so it can be kept out of danger of being knocked over. With the ceremony due to take place that evening, we spent the rest of the day preparing, setting out chairs in the sand in front of the Abernathy-Trinket home, setting up lights, and preparing food. Annie is at the Victor’s Village with a friend, preparing, while Finnick spends most of the day at the port, as is custom.

I realise I know very little about the traditions of Four, let alone the customs for their wedding ceremonies. I think about the toasting in District 12, of how no one would ever really be considered married unless they’d sat in front of the fire together. I’m curious to learn about District 4, then, and once Finnick arrives with Rigg in his arms, both of them dressed in simple but smart formalwear, I watch Haymitch preparing for the ceremony.

I can tell he’s nervous. Although stopping drinking has done him wonders, he still has shaky hands. He’s a confident man, but this means a lot to him, I know. I still don’t know how close he truly was with Finnick and Annie, I’ve noticed enough to figure out that the ten years between Finnick’s victory and the 74th Games, the three of them became a family, or as much as family as one could when the only time you spent together was behind the scenes at each year’s Games.

Effie claps her hands and asks everyone to be seated, and Finnick goes to stand with Haymitch. They shake hands and exchange a few quiet words, and I sit down in the second row with Peeta, Gale, and a few others. After a minute, Rigg appears, carrying a small box that contains the rings, and everyone smiles as he toddles towards his crouching father. Finnick has never looked so proud, and his smile is almost as wide as the one he plastered on for years on TV. He kisses Rigg on the forehead and then points over at Peeta, and to my surprise, Rigg comes running over, jumping into Peeta’s lap.

“He likes you,” I say, mildly jealous because Rigg has always pulled faces at me, but also thankful that I haven’t had to keep him still and quiet.

Peeta smiles at the little boy in his lap, bouncing him on his knees. “I couldn’t believe they trusted me with him at first. But he’s cute. Annie says I’m good with him.”

I can tell the sentiment means a lot to Peeta, and my chest is filled with light even before Annie appears and walks towards her husband-to-be.

She’s dressed in a sea-green dress, the material light and floating around her bare feet. In her hair, a band of small seashells nestled amidst rolling red curls. I wonder for a second how she managed to find such an outfit in war-torn Panem, but then I spot Effie in a tulle skirt in the front row and realise that of course she had smuggled away from clothing and fabric from her days as an Escort. Annie is lucky, perhaps, not to look like a tribute on parade.

Haymitch begins the ceremony with a short poem about the ocean, filled with metaphors about the elements and fishing, and then he produces a length of rope. Annie and Finnick kneel in the sand, and I watch, the sound of Rigg murmuring and the quiet wash of waves just a short distance away in my ears, as they clasp hands. Haymitch ties the rope around their wrists several times, intertwining them, and then up their forearms and around their waists. They beam at each other the entire time, lovesick, and recite their promises to one another. I can barely hear what they’re saying, they speak so quietly, but it’s nice. Knowing that their vows are for them and them only.

They stand and kiss, sealing the union, and Jo hoots loudly while we all clap and cheer. Rigg runs forward and throws his arms around Finnick’s legs, and as soon as they’re freed from the rope, Finn has his son on his hip and his arm wrapped around Annie, his wife.

They walk towards the ocean together, lit by the lanterns nestled in the sand, and step into the water. It can’t be too warm, but it’s part of the process. I stand beside Peeta and Jo, and offer Jo a tissue when I see the tears in her eyes. She rolls them at me and wipes with her hands instead, but she’s so clearly overjoyed.

Then, dinner begins, and we crowd into the kitchen. It’s all food from District 4, fish and seaweed and green-tinged bread that I recognise from the arena. We eat and we laugh and we talk and for a moment I feel entire outside of Panem, like we’re in another world, where there never was a Capitol, and no Games, no districts, no war. Where we were just people, just friend, coming together to celebrate.

As I look around the table, I can see that’s not quite true. The faraway looks in Peeta’s eyes, in Annie’s, the vague distraction. The jagged scar on Jo’s head where no hair will grow. Haymitch’s shaking hands. Effie’s artificially-shaped lips. I can only imagine what I look like. We’re an odd bunch, all survivors of our own personal hell. But at least we’re here together. I can look at Rigg and know that he will be a new start for this country, a better start.

Peeta brings out the cake after all the food is gone, and everyone gasps at the two-tiered creation. A pale, not quite white frosting with tiny green shells piped on, and when he cuts into it, a soft, airy sponge speckled with fruit. Annie throws her arms around Peeta, squeezing tight enough to strangle, and Peeta beams when they happy couple cut the first slice, when everyone tucks in eagerly and congratulates him.

After dinner, the plates are stacked on the countertops and we migrate back outside. Music is selected and starts playing, and we dance and sit around and relax. Rigg is put to bed after a short while, exhausted after such a busy day, and then Annie and Finnick just turn slowly, holding each other close, lit by the lanterns and entirely in their own world. I sit on one of the wooden chairs and watch, smiling when Effie pulls Haymitch up to dance with her. I’m even surprised to see Gale dancing. I’d only ever seen him doing the energetic jig that was popular in Twelve, accompanied by guitar and lots of foot stomping. He looks a little stiff, and definitely steps on his date’s feet once or twice, but he looks happy, and doesn’t get embarrassed when I make eye contact with him and give him the thumbs up.

I keep an eye on Peeta the whole time, so I see when Jo shoves him to stand and points over at me, looking exasperated, and can school my expression into something calm and collected even though my heart is hammering in my chest by the time Peeta reaches me.

“Hey,” he says. He’s shed his jacket and popped the top few buttons of his shirt, and his hair is a little frizzy because of the humidity, and he looks nervous. “You wanna dance?”

“Did Jo put you up to this?” I ask, and he rubs his forehead with his hand.

“Yeah. Said we were both being pathetic.”

I look over at her, where she’s sat talking to a man I don’t recognise but it apparently an old friend of Finnick’s family, and then back at Peeta.

“Fine,” I say, standing and wiping my suddenly clammy palms on my borrowed dress. “If you insist.”

“I do,” Peeta replies, reaching out his hand. I take it, grateful for the solidness of his grip, how it burns against my skin. Though I try to focus on just that, when he carefully steps closer to me and puts his hand high on my waist, just barely hovering, I can’t help but think about how this is the closest we’ve been since… since the arena. That this is the most intimate we’ve been since that beach. And here we are, three years later and changed beyond repair, back on the sand, dancing.

“You can—” I say, reaching to press his hand flat against me, further down to the small of my back. Peeta stiffens, his throat bobbing, and I smile nervously at him. Is this what I was missing out on at fourteen?

We sway together, and after a minute or two, we fall into a rhythm that I recognise right away as the waltz Effie taught us for the Victory Tour. I guess it did sink in after all. I can’t help the laugh that escapes me when Peeta slowly twirls me out, and almost feel like I could cry out of relief when I see that he’s less tense, that he puts his hand right back where it belongs.

He looks down at me, and after a few moments of staring at his chest, I look up at him. Same face, just older. A shadow of a beard, an adult sharpness to his jaw.

“This is nice,” he says. I bite my lip. My stomach flips.

“Yeah,” I say. “And you remember how to waltz.”

“You haven’t stepped on my foot,” he mumbles.

“That’s what you think, but I’ve been aiming for the fake one this whole time,” I reply, cheeks heating, but Peeta chuckles, a short exhale through his nose, his hand twitching in mine.

“The cake was a success,” I tell him. “You never should’ve been worried.”

“Wasn’t as good as I used to make.”

“And? No one cared. You’ll only get better.”

“Right, I’ll leave and open a bakery, practice until I’m as good as I was.”

“As long as you made my favourite.”

“Cheese buns?” he asks, and when I nod, I sense that both of us are happy that he’s remembered.

We waltz quietly for a little while longer. I can feel that my body has been going through withdrawal for a long time, and that it’s basking in being so close to him again. It just feels _good_. To have him here. To have this, this precious moment that I feared I’d never have again.

“I asked you to marry me, once,” Peeta says quietly. I look up at him. He’s watching Annie and Finnick, and when he looks down at me, his eyes are dark.

“Under different circumstances, yes,” I reply. Peeta nods.

“You didn’t want it.”

“I didn’t know what I wanted. But Peeta, listen, I would have been happy with you. I know it. If things had been different, I would’ve been have happy to have had you by my side. That’s what I always want.”

He sighs. “I know.”

I bite my lip, looking down. I see a red scar against his skin, by his clavicle, revealed by the bowed collar of his shirt. I don’t recognise it, so it has to be new. I so wish to press my lips to it, but I know it’s not the time. Not yet. So instead, we just dance, and I focus on the sand underfoot and the hand against my spine and know that this is what Snow wanted to take away, but which he never truly touched.

* * *

 

The next day, I take a walk along the beach with Haymitch. It’s a bright day, but a little colder than before, and I inhale the fresh sea air with glee, tasting the salt on my tongue. Once we’ve reached the end of the bay, Haymitch looks back along the sand.

“Remember when I said I thought I’d seen the boy here?” he asks, and I nod, staring out at the clouds scudding across the horizon. Haymitch clears his throat. “It was definitely him. I was right. Seeing him here has only made me surer.”

I glance at him. His hair is a tangled mess in the wind.

“What was he doing?” I ask.

“Eff and I were walking along one evening and she said she could see someone walking out of the surf. I couldn’t see a thing so we carried on, but when we turned back, we both saw a person lying in the sand. For a minute I thought it might have been a body. People were still washing up from time to time. But then he got up and hurried back up the beach, up the cliff. He was way too far away to do anything, but god…” Haymitch stops, shaking his head. “I was convinced I’d seen a ghost. I thought my mind was playing tricks with me. But no. I know it was him.”

I furrow my brow. “Why was he in the water?”

“Who knows. But that we were so close… it haunts me to this day. If we had been closer. If I had called out for him. Maybe he could’ve been back where he belonged much sooner than he was.”

I grip Haymitch’s arm. “You couldn’t have done anything. And he might not have even remembered that was his name. He hasn’t told me much from his time after he escaped the Capitol… I don’t know how soon her remember things.”

Haymitch seems unconvinced. I nudge him. “I’m glad you didn’t say anything,” I murmur. “I would’ve gone mad, trying to find him. It would’ve been a lot worse.”

We stand and watch the gulls swooping in the air for a little while longer. I think about Peeta lying on the sand, and how at the same time, I was tracking Macar into the Capitol, and just learning about what he had done to Peeta.


	29. Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a nice chapter. The song Peeta sings is Deep in the Meadow. Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpREVjKmpds

Given that the last time he was in District 4 he killed six people and retrieved a notebook with the names of countless others, before fleeing the district confused and alone and his mind ravaged by the voices that were crammed in there, this is a huge improvement.

People who look out for him, no one tying him down or injecting venom or sending electricity through his bones, a job, a responsibility to help the rebels. And now a couch to sleep on at his old mentor and escort’s house.

“We don’t have any more space, Peeta,” Effie had said. Peeta kept imagining her with bright blue hair but now it was a soft buttery yellow. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, no, this is fine Effie. Thank you.”

She’d laid her hand on his forearm and smiled at him, and then pulled him in for a tight hug. When she spoke, her voice was choked with tears.

“You look so well, Peeta. And you’ll never know how happy I was to hear that both my victors were alive. That we could go on as a team.”

Peeta smiles. Effie smells nice. Freshly laundered.

“Me too,” he tells her, and then she’s wiping away tears.

“You both deserved so much better,” she says, and Peeta remembers her saying that once, before the Quell. He wonders if she realises.

“We all did,” he replies. “But come on. We have a wedding to celebrate.”

The ceremony itself is magical. He feels stupid using the word, but it’s the truth. Seeing Annie and Finnick so happy makes him feel settle inside. Makes him feel a modicum of comfort. Rigg wiggles in his lap the entire time, playing with his fingers, and Peeta can’t help but hold him close.

And then, the meal afterwards. Sat beside Katniss and Haymitch, feeling out of place but also like this is right where he should be. Effie says it’s just like being on the train again which puts a pause on the conversation for a minute, but she means well and they all quickly move on. But Peeta stares at the cutlery, at the tines of the fork, and remembers sitting on the train after his first Reaping, marvelling at everything. He’d been in daze the entire journey, in awe at the splendour of it all. And then he’d arrived in the Capitol, and he’d started to spot where the façade slipped, where it was barely a veneer on what was really there.

He’d resigned himself to his fate the moment his name had been called, and seeing his mentor and escort didn’t make him anymore hopeful. He’d been angry with them both, but he can’t ever be again. Effie didn’t know any better until she was directly exposed to the horror. And Haymitch—well, Peeta knows something of wanting to block out the torture, the nightmares, but not having the guts to pull the trigger.

So he sits in a little house on the beach in District 4 and eats green-tinged bread smeared with butter and rich, freshly-caught fish (he tries not to think of that nurse hitting the ground in the fishery all that time ago) and no one pressures him to take part in the chatter, no one looks at him like he’s something dragged up from hell. He just sits there and tries to get out of his head. He passes Haymitch the salt even though Effie scolds him about Haymitch’s blood pressure, and when Katniss almost knocks her glass of water over he catches it and she thanks him with a soft smile and a hand brushed over his.

It’s nice. It’s so far from what he thought he had, who he thought he was, and what he knew he’d end up with. It’s hopeful.

Johanna bullies him into asking Katniss to dance. They’re sat together on the chairs that have been pulled out into a circle to make room for dancing, and she’s making comments about how fickle romance is and he knows she’s mostly joking and enjoying having her near him and oh so unchanged, and then she makes a sound of disgust.

“If you’re going to ignore me at least do it somewhere else,” she says, and he blinks, looking over.

“What?”

“You and _the mockingjay_ ,” she says, sarcasm heavy in her voice. “Your one true love. You’re full-on staring at her like a creep—”

“I didn’t—”

“Thousand-yard stare, whatever,” she interrupts. “And she’s been glancing at you all evening as well. So for my sake, go over and dance with her before I throw up.”

When he doesn’t move, she physically shoves him, surprisingly strong given her skinny frame and his bulk, and he stumbles over the sand to Katniss and offers to dance with her.

And then they do. And it’s terrifying and he can’t stop feeling overwhelmed at the fact that they’re so close, and she looks so beautiful in the soft lantern lights, in an old dress Cinna made for her an age ago, but with the skirts cut at the bottom so she doesn’t trip, and he wants to run into the surf and let the water take him. Take him away, so he’s not this dark blight, this shadow, on what has been a lovely day.

But then he thinks of what people have told him. Haymitch. Hawthorne. Dr Wells. That it wasn’t his fault. That he did what he had to do to survive, and that that’s a very different thing to who he actually is. He did what had to be done even when he didn’t know the ramifications of it. The people who care for him most understand why he did what he did, and don’t care about it. They just want him to be here, safe, alive.

Three little promises he has to make. And if life is like this, he supposes he’ll be able to keep them. For her. For Katniss.

* * *

 

Peeta tosses and turns all night, listening to the sea and the tinkling of a wind chime, just thinking about Katniss. He likes her. He understands why the Peeta from before liked her and wonders if that fact that he still likes her is proof he’s still who he was, once, somewhere deep inside.

It’s these dark, lurking depths that scare him. Not him personally, because he knows how to navigate them, how to handle it in a way that won’t get anyone else hurt. But he fears that others will be horrified, if they really knew.

Katniss won’t like the bad parts of him that have been dredged up. She won’t. She’ll leave him, she’ll dig a grave on the beach or in the damp, peaty soil outside Twelve and lead him in by the hand and he’ll go like a lost puppy, stupid and _stupid_ and she’ll climb back out and he’ll just lay there as she covers him up, as she buries him. He’ll get sand and shells and little pieces of decaying leaves in his nose and then in his lungs, and he’ll continue to rot. He’ll rot and rot and nothing will grow above him because he will have poisoned the ground and once he’s completely in the dark and can feel her patting the earth down on the surface, he’ll finally be out of reach, surrounded by worms and beetles and—

His eyes snap open, and he coughs, gasping for air, feeling soil in his throat. The world around him is all blues and greys and unfamiliar and he swings his legs over the edge of the couch—the couch. The couch. He’s fine. He’s safe.

He puts his head in his hands, the blanket half twisted around him, and focuses on his breathing.

* * *

 

He can’t get back to sleep, so he’s sat alone on the porch, looking at the sun as it lights up the shimmering distant waves, when a light from indoors spills yellow into his eye line. He looks over his shoulder through the panes of glass and sees Effie in the kitchen, brewing something at the counter. After a few minutes, the door creaks open and she steps out into the fresh morning air.

“Here,” she says, giving him a streaming mug of tea. He takes it with a soft thank you.

“Do you mind if I sit, Peeta?” she asks, and he shakes his head, making room for her on the little bench. She sits, wrapping her silk shawl around her, warming her hands on her own cup. For a while, they just sit in silence, watching the sunrise.

Then, Effie speaks. Still, her accent is like he grew used to during the Games, the hiss on the _s_ sounds, the curious pronunciation of some words, the melodic rhythm in each sentence.

“I grew up in the Capitol,” she says. “Surrounded by buildings taller than I could fathom. It was… a very different world. My childhood was completely different to yours. But I always liked the water. I used to look out at the reservoir. When it was stormy it caused quite a fright, but I always found it fascinating.

“When I became an Escort, I hoped to be assigned to District 4 so I could see the ocean. I was quite upset to be given Twelve, instead. All land. Not even a lake I could visit. Just trees. So when the Games stopped, and when Haymitch got be extradited, he told me to pick where I wanted to exiled to. And I chose here.”

Peeta glances at her. “You made a good choice.”

She hums. “Hmmm. I think I did.”

“Does Haymitch miss Twelve?”

“Not really. There’s little there for him anymore. And the sun does him good. The heat.”

“I think you’re what’s good for him, Effie,” Peeta says. He’s not sure where the sentiment comes from but it feels like the right thing to say and it makes her lips purse and her eyes shine so he tries not to think too hard about it.

“Oh, stop it,” she scolds, a proud smile rolling over her features. “He’d never admit to it but I suppose I _have,_ haven’t I?”

“You’re good at keeping people together,” Peeta tells her. “You were so nice to us.”

“Not at first. I didn’t understand at first. I was too angry at where I’d been allocated.” She sniffs. “I do think I started being nice to you a little too late, my dear.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Peeta murmurs.

Effie sets her tea down and takes his free hand in both of hers, squeezing tight.

“My boy, I’m so proud of you,” she says. “Haymitch is too. You know he cried when he heard they found you?”

Peeta says nothing. He can barely imagine it. And there he was, meeting Haymitch who was, at first, a familiar figure with whom he held some residual trust that he couldn’t quite place.

“No one seemed happy when they found me,” Peeta says. In this liminal, grey hour, he feels like he can tell Effie anything. “Guns, cuffs. Katniss looked horrified. And they locked me up in the hospital for weeks.”

Effie’s brows, or what has survived of them, pull together. “They didn’t know what to expect, Peeta. It wasn’t a slight against you. We didn’t know who we would find. It was just a caution.”

He shrugs. Effie squeezes tighter. “Let me tell you, that even the people who you don’t feel like you actually really do. The entirety of Panem fell in love with you, Peeta. You were the boy of reason. How do you think Katniss became such an icon? It certainly wasn’t on her own, no matter how much I told her to smile!”

Peeta allows himself a small smile. “She’s stubborn.”

“She is,” Effie agrees, laughing the same way she did when she was covered in feathers and powder, high-pitched. “But you were a martyr. Everyone saw it. They painted murals for the both of you. It was never just her. People mourned for you when you went missing. Panem needed you as much as they needed anyone else. When they announced you were alive after all these years, we had reporters knocking day and night for a statement. It was all people could talk about. How you’d managed to survive. It really is an extraordinary tale.”

“I guess.”

“You needn’t fear about being alone. Even if the entirety of Panem hated you, you would always have us. Me, Haymitch, Miss Mason, Mister Odair and his lovely, lovely wife. Even Mister Hawthorne has gotten over his childish jealously.” She smiles at him, eyes sparkling. “And most of all, you have Katniss. She will love you no matter what. She’s loved just a handful of people, and hasn’t had the best of luck in keeping them close. But the two of you… gosh, it’s remarkable. You two have always protected each other. That’s what you do, I’m afraid.”

Peeta feels his chest going tight. He feels silly for doubting what people have been telling him over and over, but the doubt is always there, lingering. He can’t help it. As his memories have started to recover, piece by piece by piece, he’s figured things out. Most of the time it’s completely subconsciously, and people don’t realise it until he mentions something from long ago. But he _is_ getting better. And even when he feels like he isn’t, and even if he never _did_ , people would be there for him. Despite everything, not because.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says, feeling like a child. “I can’t talk like I used to. I don’t think like I used to. I’ve upset her before because I’m… harsher. I don’t know.”

“It was just surprising to her, I’m sure. But Katniss is tough. We all know that.” Effie leans back against the bench, staring out at the waves. Peeta looks too, feeling the warmth of the sun against his skin.

“I can tell you like her, Peeta,” Effie says after a moment. “No it won’t be the same as before, but why would either of you want it to be? I know how it tough it was for you both. You loved her and she was just trying to survive. Now… now you have the time to try again. Like normal people. Or as normal as you can be.”

He nods.

“You’ve already said how you feel and she’ll respect that. Just talk to her. I can guarantee it’ll be alright.”

* * *

 

By the time they’re boarding the hovercraft to head back to District 5 that afternoon, with Annie and Finnick staying in Four to honeymoon, Peeta has made his mind up. He’s going to try and spend more time with Katniss, outside of squad 451, outside of him grilling her for answers. He wants to learn more about her because that’s what friends do. And they’re friends. Katniss promised him they were.

Five is cold and snowy when they return, and Jo grumbles about missing the sun and the beach before they’ve even landed. They report to Command but their briefing is short: there’s nothing that currently concerns them, and they’re to use their time wisely. At first, he helps out with building and supplies tasks in Five, putting his strength and strategic thought to good use, but it’s not conducive to spending time with Katniss. He’s usually exhausted at the end of the day, and half the time they’re not even working on the same task, let alone in the same area of Five.

So, one morning he wakes up and instead of heading to the mess hall straight away for breakfast or knocking on Jo’s door to walk with her, he climbs the few flights, nodding to the other soldiers he passes, and finds himself in front of Katniss’ door. He’s never been here before, so he doesn’t entirely understand how he knows which room it is, but he knocks anyway.

Katniss opens after a few seconds of him rocking back and forth on his heels, and she clearly wasn’t expecting him to be there, or anyone to be there, really. Her hair is down, a dark sheet of hair, and she’s wearing her heavy cargo pants and clunky work boots and just a tight under skin layer.

“Oh, Peeta!” she says, eyes widening. She grabs a jacket from the hook by the door and throws it on. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Is it too early?”

“No, no. I’ve been up for ages. I just…” she trails off, embarrassed. “It doesn’t matter.”

He lingers at the threshold of her small quasi-apartment. It’s obviously just an old building retconned for military use, weird fixtures still hanging on, paint peeling, but it’s infinitely nicer than the places he’s stayed in across Panem, and she’s clearly tried to make it her own, little touches here and there.

“I just…” he says, watching her tie back her hair, fingers quick and nimble. “I wanted to know if we could go somewhere today. Just the two of us.”

She hides her surprise well enough, and after a few seconds of opening and closing her mouth, she nods. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Peeta says. He tries to feel confident and pushes out his shoulders.

“Was there somewhere you had in mind?”

“Is there anywhere here we can go to?” he asks. In Five, he’s only ever been around the military base and into the urban areas, the furthest he’s gone being to the huge swathes of land used to house solar panels. He’s only crossed the border by air.

“There’s a forest a little way north. I know how to get there. We could go there if you’re up for it?”

Peeta nods. That sounds… perfect, actually. It hasn’t escaped his notice that he’s been surrounded by rubble for a long time, surrounded by concrete. Though he knows that before the Games, he was very much a town boy, Twelve had its fair share of trees, and it was impossible to ignore the huge, forest-covered hills and mountains that enclosed the district.

“I have to talk to Boggs after breakfast, so we can meet around ten? At the entrance to the base?”

“Sure.”

“Bring a jacket and some water,” she says. She seems excited about the trip.

“Okay.”

Katniss smiles at him. “I’ll see you in a bit, then.”

After breakfast, he goes back to his room and picks up a thick jacket, a woollen hat, and a pair of gloves. There’s a thin layer of snow on the ground at the moment, and the skies promise more, and he knows that the last thing he’ll want is to be cold. He can always take off the layers. Then he sits in his room for a moment, gathering his thoughts. At ten to ten, he dresses, and then he then walks to the agreed meeting point and waits, watching the trucks coming in and out of the base, watching people going about their daily lives.

“Hey,” Katniss’ voice is soft in his ear, and he turns to find her walking towards him. She’s dressed for the weather as well, a thick scarf around her neck, and a backpack over her shoulders. Katniss puts her hands in her pockets. “Let’s go.”

They walk about a foot or two apart down through the town, Katniss leading the way with ease, and then uphill to a checkpoint on the old border, defunct now but yet to be torn down. They pass through the gate, closing it behind them, and after ten minutes of traipsing through frozen grass, they reach the treeline. Peeta stops on the slight incline, looking up at the line of pines, dusted with snow.

Katniss stops and turns. Her nose is red from the cold, and her breath billows out into the air, but she looks happy.

“You good?” she asks, and Peeta nods. Yeah. He’s good.

As soon as they’re under the trees it’s a little warmer, especially since the first mile or two are pretty much uphill. Katniss worries about his leg but he assures her it causes him no pain anymore, and they carry on. Occasionally they stop to catch their breath and take a drink of water, and Katniss points out various features of the forest. Moss on the side of a gnarled trunk, animal tracks.

“I can barely see a thing,” Peeta remarks, and Katniss shrugs.

“My dad taught me how to read the forest,” she says. “I’m a bit rusty. It’s been a while since I’ve been in the woods, actually. So thanks for inviting me out with you.”

“I wouldn’t have gone alone,” Peeta says. “That would have been a bad idea.”

When the terrain levels out some, they take a meandering route, and stop on a rocky outcrop. The trees are a little thinner, here, and they’re up high enough to see District 5 almost in its entirety, blanketed in white. Katniss points to the base, to the barracks, to the field of solar panels, and to the faint lines that are pylons stretching across the land.

Peeta just stares, amazed. It’s beautiful up in the woods, and although it’s cold, he feels content. The shimmer of ice on the leaves, the crunch of snow underfoot, the muffled quiet of the canopy.

“You walk a lot quieter now,” Katniss says as they eat the food they brought, her legs swinging out in front of her. She looks young when she does it. He forgets just how young they both are.

“Really?” he asks.

“Yeah. Though, you stomped everywhere before, so I don’t know how much of an improvement it actually is.”

Peeta smiles. “Thanks.”

Katniss smiles back, shy. “You’re welcome.”

The snow starts to fall again, landing in Katniss’ dark hair, and he wishes, suddenly, that he had something to draw with. He regrets leaving his notepad behind. _Just commit it to memory_ , says a voice, and he exhales, looking out over the valley. The voice is right. He just needs to trust his own head.

“I’m glad Annie and Finnick are finally married,” Katniss says, cupping her hands around a flask. “I don’t… I don’t think you need to get married, but they deserve to be.”

“They deserve happiness.”

“Yes. And we almost lost Finnick, actually,” she says. “We were in the Capitol, in the sewers, and we got attacked by these… these mutts. They were like lizards.” Her nose wrinkles as she speaks. “Anyway, we had to escape up this ladder and he was last and got dragged back down. I thought he was gone but Gale managed to shoot enough so he could get away.”

“Did you go on a lot of dangerous missions?” Peeta asks.

“A fair few. I’ve been shot at, had the truck I was in rammed by another vehicle. You name it. I think I’ve used up my nine lives.”

“Me too,” Peeta says. Katniss looks at him. Her eyes are sad, but her mouth lifts into a small smile. She reaches over and puts her hand over his, and despite the gloves, the contact sends electricity buzzing through him. He expects his stomach to roll, but it doesn’t.

“Thanks for asking me to dance. On the beach.”

“That’s okay,” he says, feeling a little bewildered. “Thanks for agreeing.”

Katniss laughs a little. “I wouldn’t have said no.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It was fun.”

“Do you like to dance?”

“I didn’t used to much, unless it was when I was celebrating Prim’s birthday or something with the Hawthornes, but I’ve actually danced more during the war than I ever did before. I enjoy it, yeah.”

Peeta takes a breath and stands, brushing snow off his pants. Katniss follows his movements, and before he can even offer out his hand she’s shaking her head in disbelief.

“Oh my god, Peeta, no. This isn’t what I meant.”

“You said you liked it,” he says. She stares at him, her mouth open, and snorts. “Come on,” he insists, taking a few steps back. “You can’t say no or it’s going to be awkward on the walk back.”

Katniss stands like she’s only doing so to make a point, and Peeta grins.

“You weirdo,” she says under her breath, brushing herself down too.

Peeta steps back, bows, and Katniss mutters something to herself but puts her hand in his nevertheless, rolling her eyes when he pulls her closer.

At first, they’re just falling into the rhythm of it, keeping their footing on the icy rock and moss beneath them, but after a moment, they’re in sync. Perfect footwork. Peeta begins to hum, first in his head, and then quietly, and then loud enough so Katniss can hear. In the silent forest, it feels immense.

Katniss looks up at him, and something sour strikes through him at the tears in her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, a myriad of thoughts spinning past his head. What if he read this wrong? What if she feels pressured to do things with him? What if everyone was lying about talking to her, about going with what he felt, about taking the chance?

“It’s not you,” Katniss explains, not letting go of his hand. “It’s the song. Where’d you hear it?”

Peeta thinks of the tune. He doesn’t recall exactly where he heard it first, but he would hear it sang by people as he went through the districts. He saw a funeral once, and the procession sang as the coffin was carried through. He heard Marta hum it sometimes. And he remembers hearing it on the television, seeing flowers and—

“Rue,” he whispers, the word something sacred in his mouth as memories come rushing back. The tiny girl Katniss protected, how she was so like Primrose, how Peeta painted her for the Gamemakers. Katniss nods.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “Yeah. When she died. I sang it to her. I used to sing it to Prim, too.”

“People in the districts sing it.”

“Yeah. It kind of became well-known because of the first arena. I don’t mind it. It’s a nice song.” She clears her throat. “I’m just surprised you remember it.”

“I only know the tune. Not the lyrics.”

Katniss nods. “That’s okay.”

They continue to sway, and he can’t bring himself to hum the song again, but it doesn’t matter because after a moment, Katniss begins to sing. It’s muffled at first, self-conscious, but then she lets herself sing. Her voice is gentle, low, a little rough, but it’s enough to make him feel weak at the knees.

She’s close enough that she’s practically singing into his chest, her lips almost touching his jacket, and it feels like she’s singing directly into his heart. Like the lyrics are pushing past the skin, muscle, and bone, getting inside, deep, making everything glow.

_Here it’s safe, here it’s warm,_

_Here the daises guard you from every harm,_

_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true,_

_Here is the place where I love you._

Another revelation. He was looking for home all this time, and it was never a place. It was a person. The only person he has left, who truly understands. Maybe it’s not love he’s feeling, not yet. But this is where he wants to be.

Katniss ends her song, but the words linger in the frozen air. If she had been louder, if there had been jabberjays nearby, the mountain would have been alive with the music, but he almost prefers it this way. This enclosed moment for themselves. Katniss lifts her cheek from his chest.

“Come on,” she says. “We should get back before it gets dark.”

“Katniss,” he replies, not willing to let her go. She looks up at him. Something has occurred between them, now. Some line has been crossed. Effie was right. They were all right.

“Peeta?”

“Thank you.”

Katniss squeezes his hand. “Come on,” she says, moving away to pick up her backpack. Peeta stands there. He feels adrift, up on this mountain, but safe. He can float away but he’ll remain tethered to Katniss. She’ll understand when he needs to be pulled back in.

They walk back, shoulders brushing, and by the time they arrive, the night has drawn in the dark, and the snow is falling in thick flakes. The barracks are quiet, still. Peeta stops at the bottom of the staircase.

“Thanks for coming with me,” he says. “This was nice.”

Katniss observes him for a moment. She seems sad, but hopeful, too. “Come and have some cocoa,” she says, and turns and walks up the concrete steps, not giving him the opportunity to say no.

He hesitates, looking along the empty corridor, and then follows. His heart races, the voice in his head chanting both a warning and encouragement, and he shakes it off. Katniss unlocks her door and switches on the lights. She looks back at him, loitering at the door like a lost shadow, and smiles.


	30. Katniss and Peeta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can decide for yourself if you think they did the do...

**Katniss**

When I hear _Deep in the Meadow_ , I feel like I’m being catapulted through my life. Back to my earliest, haziest memories, my parents singing me to sleep. To singing to Prim when she had a nightmare. To Rue, in the woods of the first arena.

I’d known it had been adopted by a lot of people all over Panem, but truthfully, the last time I’d heard it was in the arena. Peeta could have only have heard it then, but he’s heard it in other districts, too. I can’t help but wonder if he ever considered why it sounded familiar, or if was familiar at all. But that he remembered it, that it felt right to sing it on that mountain… it’s a hopeful sign. To me, it’s Rue, and she never really left. She believed in Peeta and me. And all this time later, despite everything, I do too.

My feelings have been bruised, beaten down, but they remain. And now here we are, in my barracks apartment all the way in District 5, boiling water to make cocoa. A rarity sent over by Effie. Something safe and warm.

I tell Peeta to sit on the couch and he does so, not saying a word. I wonder if he’s trying not to let his nerves get the best of him, because I know that’s my primary goal. I focus on the swirling cocoa, the hot water, the spoon clinking.

I look at Peeta, my heart leaping. I like him. I love him. I always will. It doesn’t matter that he’s different. I’m different too. We’ll always protect each other, though. That’s something that hasn’t changed.

My hands don’t shake when I bring over the cocoa, but our fingers brush when I hand him a mug. He murmurs his thanks, and they book look through the window at the street below, newly repaired, at the lights of District 5 rising from the rubble, anew, covered in snow.

It’s been a long time since I felt this calm. This settled. It wasn’t until he was gone that I realised how much I needed him to feel this way, this quiet, insular, comfortable heaviness. Like the world is shut out, like nothing else matters. And all we’re doing is sitting on a couch, drinking hot cocoa, watching the snow fall on a new world.

Peeta finishes his drink first. His leg bumps against mine, and after a moment, he reaches over to put his hand on my knee. It’s tentative, but it’s enough to make me feel like I’m going up in flame.

“What is this?” I ask him, setting down my mug.

He doesn’t answer, and for a dreadful moment, I realise. “Peeta,” I say. “This isn’t—I didn’t mean—you’re not obliged.”

“I know,” he replies. He looks at me. His eyes are so, so blue. I swallow, blinking fast to fight the tears that threaten to arise. “Can I?” he asks.

“Can you what?”

“Kiss you.”

I lose all ability to speak, then. I’m surprised, but in the few milliseconds between me nodding and Peeta leaning in, I understand that I expected this. That this is what has been building between us for a few months now. And that all we needed was a moment that was entirely ours to remember everything that was lost.

Peeta kisses me, and I can’t help but shift forward, put one hand on the couch to balance, and the other on his shoulder. I just want to be close to him. I just want to hold him and never let him go. Relief rolls through me when Peeta tilts his head, kissing me properly, leaning in, cupping my jaw in his hands.

“Why are you crying?” he asks, shifting back, his thumb swiping against my cheek.

“I’m not,” I whisper, pushing up onto my knees. “I’m not, I promise.”

I kiss him again, trying to communicate everything. All the hours I spent wondered where he was, if he was lost to me forever, and regretting that our circumstances had let me break his heart after we came back home. That our circumstances led to everything else that came after.

Was this inevitable? Was I born to fulfil this role, to lose my father, my sister, my people, my home? Was Peeta going to be there all along, no matter what? I have to believe so.

His hands slide down, down my sides, my spine, pulling me into his lap. He feels so warm, so solid beneath me. I feel protected, I feel like I’m being set on fire. I press my palms against the broad expanse of his chest, feeling his heart beating under my palm. He’s alive. He’s alive. _He’s alive_.

* * *

 

**Peeta**

When he wakes in the morning, he’s in a bed and in a room he doesn’t immediately recognise, but Katniss is curled up beside him, her hand over his heart, and pale sunlight is refracting through the ice on the window panes, and he’s never felt more complete than he has now.

 _This is okay_ , he tells himself. _We’re okay_ , says the voice. He smiles, pushing his nose into Katniss’ hair. She smells like pine. She sighs, the sound quiet. He likes quiet. He likes calm. He likes this.

She wakes after a while, and they just lie there, warm under the sheets. She gets a furrow in her forehead as she traces a jagged scar on his clavicle. She doesn’t ask. He won’t tell.

“You know they erased everything? After our first Games.”

“They did? Why?”

“To make us perfect,” she replies.

“They didn’t do a very good job, did they?”

She snorts. “No. No, they definitely didn’t.”

“I have this,” he says, lifting his wrist to show her the tattoo. She stares at it. “It’s okay,” he says. “It helped, actually. Helped me figure out who I was.”

Katniss looks at him, and then presses her lips to the thin skin of his wrist, her eyes closing, her eyelashes fanning over her cheekbones, and then she climbs out of the bed. “I’ll bring back tea,” she promises, and then she’s gone.

He tilts his head back on the pillow, looking at the ceiling. This is what home feels like, then. It feels like cotton, like a kiss, like the bustle of a person in another room, like memories filtering back in to be put back together again. It means not running. It means looking in the mirror and knowing who was looking back.

It means his name is Peeta. And that he’s safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank FUCK this is done. hopefully you enjoyed it. catch me at @saturnblushes on tumblr and pinterest to see the board i made for this fic. ciao!


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